


Conqueror

by 1000lux



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Dealing With Trauma, Flint dealing with his feelings for both Thomas and Silver, Happy Ending, Hurt feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Nightmares, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, Philosophy, Piracy, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Talking, Thomas and Flint meeting again, Thomas becomes a pirate, Thomas lives, but no spoilers as far as i'm aware, established silver/flint, flashbacks to non-voluntary psychiatric institutionalization, looking out for each other, past Eleanor Guthrie/Charles Vane, past Thomas Hamilton/James McGraw, set at the beginning of season 3, some dialogues taken from season 4, switching POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8806396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000lux/pseuds/1000lux
Summary: Charles and his crew take another prize and find a lonely prisoner aboard it. The crew lost a lot of men recently, so seeing as the prisoner clearly doesn't have anyone to pay ransom for him and is unwilling to be returned to his captors, they offer him an option to join the crew. Desperate as he is for a way out, Thomas Hamilton takes the offer.





	1. Prologue: Into the Jungle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andrea_deer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [andrea_deer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/pseuds/andrea_deer) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> Disclaimer: I own neither rights to the series or it's characters!
> 
> I'm finally posting this before it kills me. I've been writing on this since I claimed the prompt somewhere in July or August this year. This prompt appealed to me from the second I read it. I'm not even sure why. Then I realised it was actually really hard to work with. After a while though, it just kept growing. There will be second part to this story that isn't finished yet, where there will be Flint and Silver (finally). But at least this part is now finished to my satisfaction.
> 
> I had a huge blast writing this story and I hope you're going to like it and it's something like what you were looking for.

***

Great men don't give up that pursuit.  
They don't know how.  
And that is what makes them invincible.

(Miranda Hamilton)

***

Thomas couldn't begin to fathom what Peter Ashe could possibly want from him after ten years. The friend he'd last seen when he testified against him, condemning him to a life in the asylum. Wasn't it enough that he'd given him absolution back then?

*

"Captain, look what we found downstairs."

Charles walked down the inner of the ship to be presented with a cell, more of a cage. A man was sitting inside on the floor, one arm resting on a tucked up knee. Shaggy blond hair hung low into his face, obscuring most of it. He wore a plain shirt and pair of trousers made of undyed linen. His feet were bare.

"The pyrate menace." There was a low chuckle from inside the cell, the man himself remaining unmoved. 

There was something eery about the whole scene. Especially since the corpses of the men Charles and his crew had just killed lay still strewn around the room, the blood seeping through the bars of the man's prison.

Finally the man lifted his face, laying Charles bare to the scrutiny of clear, grey eyes that were in stark contrast to the ungroomed face. There was laughter in the crook of his mouth. There was no laughter in his eyes.

"Captain, you've come into the questionable honor of acquiring me. Much good it may do you. May I inquire whether or not I'm to meet the same end as my recently departed jailors?"

Charles was brought up short. He hadn't decided yet. He saw no reason, though, to kill a man who had obviously been the prisoner of the men he had just killed.

"Not a prospect that scares you much, is it?" Charles asked instead, feeling a spark of challenge, of amusement.

"Certainly not a prospect to look forward to, but unavoidable in the long run for all of us, is it not? Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, from desires that make us their puppets, from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh," he told him conversationally. "And let me tell you, my day has considerably improved since you boarded this ship."

"Who are you?"

The man got up now, standing up straight, relaxed and at the same time imposing. Charles realised that he was rather tall, probably as tall as him. He took a step closer to the bars, facing Charles.

"My name is Thomas Hamilton. I'm from London. I am here on request of Peter Ashe, on my way to Charlestown, to be delivered to him," he stated matter-of-factly.

Charles would have guessed him to be in his mid-fourties on a closer look, even though his hair made him look younger.

"What the fuck makes you important enough that someone bothers to send you across the sea?" Charles smiled, his curiousity stirred. "You sound like money. How did you end up in this cell, I wonder?"

"I'm afraid the reason for my voyage is only known to Peter Ashe himself." He laughed. "I doubt though that he would pay any form of ransom for me, if you intend to return me to him. Whether you believe that is entirely up to you."

Charles laughed at that. "Oh, yes, I'm sure he wouldn't pay any ransom for you. I'm just coming from Charlestown. And there's not much left of it. I doubt there's much left of the govenor either."

Charles couldn't tell what lit up in the man's eyes. An emotion that was too complex to be categorized as either good or bad, elation or regret.

"Peter Ashe is dead?"

"Was he a friend?" Charles asked, mostly joking.

"He was, as a matter of fact, once upon a time."

"What do they lock up an English nobleman in a cell for?"

"The same they'd lock up a carpenter for."

*

Charles circled the Captain of the Infinity.

"I'm interested in your cargo."

"We transport silk and wine to Charlestown, on request of Govenor Peter Ashe."

"Not that cargo. What of the man, you had locked up down there?" Charles would have preferred to know, before he let a stark raving lunatic onto his ship. Well, taking into consideration the rest of his crew, he said he'd like to know, he never said he wouldn't let him onto his ship.

"I don't know. He is supposed to be delivered to the Govenor himself. I know nothing of him. He was presented to us at the harbor, by men who wouldn't identify themselves. I know neither his name, nor his crime. And I haven't engaged him during our travel."

"You tell me you and your men were on the ocean for weeks on end and no one talked to the most interesting thing to happen on this voyage?"

"My men knew their orders and they're not gossipers."

"Oh, bullshit, we're all gossipers. It comes with the terrain."

*

"No one wants to tell me what the hell you did... You were locked up there, they don't lock up people they want to ransom, not like animals." Charles watched the prisoner closely as he spoke. So far he hadn't gotten a rise out of the man. "So, what you did must be so horrible that you're either too afraid or too ashamed to tell it to a pirate."

There was none now either. Only a small flicker, a flash of what... defiance, that washed over his eyes. He stood up a little straighter, a wry curl to his lips.

"I've never done anything I was ashamed of in my life. Whether I did something wrong, well, that depends on the state of the law. I'd say we're the same in that."

Charles laughed heartily at that, coming to a resolution.

"We lost quite a few men, when we took this ship, we can leave you here, with the survivors, or you can join our crew."

The man didn't even hesitate.

"I will join your crew, Captain."

"You're quick to throw in your lot with a bunch of pirates."

"Trust me on this, I'm not scared of pirates."

"Yes, I figured that. What I wonder, though, is, what's in England that you're so scared of."

"Nothing is in England. All my hopes in this life lie in Nassau."

"Open the cell." Charles gestured to one of his men. The prisoner walked out.

He held out a hand. "Captain– I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced yet."

"Charles Vane."

"Captain Vane."

They shook hands.

*

Thomas walked over the planks of the ship, through the debris and fallen bodies. Indeed, Fortuna was a fickle lover, so had these men who'd been his keepers only an hour ago found their end here, while Thomas found himself lifted from his chains quite literally.

He watched the corpses with mild indifference, only a small churning of satisfaction in his insides.

From time to time he felt the burn of revenge so strong it ate him up. But he'd learned to adjust his expectations. It was the only way to stay sane. Ten years. Bethlem had become his whole world. Time had stood still. He hadn't even tried to garner knowledge about the outside anylonger. Doing so would have only meant that there was still some foolish part of him that still entertained any hope. The last hope of ever leaving that place had finally died after the first four years. He'd finally accepted that no one was coming for him. Now that he was out in the world again with all the colors, the constant assault of all senses, he could hardly believe how he'd done it, how he'd existed all those years. 

In his mind he'd reread every book he'd ever read. In his mind he'd written countless books. Philosophy. Politics. A complete bill of rights for Nassau. But also novels. Romance. Adventure. Travels to foreign countries. Future societies devoid of all the misconceptions of the current one. He could leaf through all of them like he had them right in front of him, knowing what stood on every page.

And now, here he was. A chance. Freedom. For the first time in ten years Thomas' life had taken a new course. Somewhere out here James and Miranda would be. He would have wished a different life for them. A more peaceful life. But he knew that the only place James would go would be Nassau and Miranda would be with him.

*

That night the men decided to celebrate the taking of the prize and taking on of their new crew member. So, basically just an excuse to drink. Spirits had been as low as the rum aboard, lately, so they were greatful for the barrels of wine they'd found aboard the ship.

Their English lord of the many secrets sat down between the men and asked what was to drink. He'd certainly cleaned up, that much could be said. Though Charles had no idea where he'd gotten new clothes. While not fitting for a member of the genteel it was certainly a step up from prison rags.

"Well, I would have prefered something stronger," Thomas Hamilton commented, accepting an open wine bottle from one of the men. "But, I guess, better wine than nothing." 

The men heartily cheered in, clinking bottles and mugs. "Better wine than nothing!"

Charles felt a tingle to say something about not having the necessary cut glass ware for a proper soiree, but swallowed it down with the next gulp of wine. Give the new guy a breather, life would be hitting him in the face soon enough.

Had Charles thought that the newest addition to their crew would be averse to the concept of drinking from the bottle or drinking in general, he learned better now. Man, could he drink.

As the night passed on, he found himself beside a grinning Thomas Hamilton.

"Do you know how long it has been since I've gotten off my ass drunk?" He was asked cheerfully.

 

In the morning Charles woke up with his stomach inside out and a feeling of someone cutting his head open with a rusty saw. He was gleefully informed by his crew members that he'd apparently lost a drinking contest against the new guy.


	2. Yo-ho, a pirate life for me

There couldn't have been a worse fit of a crew, for a man like Thomas Hamilton. He could have fooled Charles for a moment when he first boarded the ship, looking nearly as shaggy as the other men of the group. But his posture, the whole way he moved, the mere second he opened his mouth to speak... This man wasn't like them. Whatever had been done to him hadn't been able to purge out the education that had obviously been ingrained in him from a young age. He moved and talked like all these fancy rich people. Like Richard fucking Guthrie. The first thing he'd done was to shave and cut the fringes of his hair to an even length, for fuck's sake. He'd looked like he was going to invite him to fucking tea the moment he'd emerged on deck, freshly groomed. A man like that with Charles' crew, it seemed like a joke. He would have been a better fit for Hornigold's troop of wannabes. Maybe even Flint that fucking book worm. But no he'd ended up with Charles Vane. But maybe he'd keep. There was something hard in his face, under the graceful features and the soft grey-blue of his eyes. Something that spoke of deprivation, of a soul starved and torn beyond recognition. Something jaded and at the same time burning with uncontained hate. Most of all the lack of fear. And that was probably what had kept the crew from eating him alive. They could smell fear, or the lack thereof. He seemed to watch everything with dire amusement, expecting only the worst of everyone but uncaring about it. A man who had nothing to lose. Except there was one thing the man did very obviously care about and that was his recently obtained freedom. And didn't Charles understand that only too well.

Well, Charles assumed it was a good thing to have someone aboard who knew how to read and write. And then of course, the man could drink like there was no tomorrow. And that was always a quality Charles appreciated in another.

*

They made port in Nassau. Finally. For the first time Thomas saw it with his own eyes. How ironic that it would be as a pirate. He turned to one of his crewmates.

"I'm not sure what the customs are here..."

"Get drunk, get yourself a whore."

Well, that was certainly within the realm of the possible.

 

"Do you know a James McGraw?"

"Never heard of him. Friend of yours?" Charles Vane asked.

"Yes."

He would of course have changed his name. Well, Thomas would find him sooner or later.

Vane turned around to him once more. "Don't vanish, Thomas," he warned him. "We're setting sail as soon as we've restocked."

"Of course not." Thomas smiled. "Where would I go?"

Charles watched the newest addition to his crew leave. That was the thing about Thomas. He wasn't just not scared of the crew. He wasn't scared of him either, not even intimidated. Even with Jack and Anne there had been a certain wariness. There were only three other people alive who met him eye to eye. Teach, Flint and Eleanor. Two because they were his match and one because she knew she could get away with it. But, hell, maybe Eleanor'd been his match more than the others all along. He wondered which one Thomas was going to be.

 

Thomas spent most of the day asking around, looking around, trying to find clues of his missing family. At the same time taking in the city, in all it's vulgarity, violence and freedom. With all the rules he didn't yet know. At night it took him to the tavern, telling himself he was still looking.

He emptied another cup, his gaze gliding across the room, over the colorful bunch sharing this piece of rock in the sea with him. He saw the man look at him across the tavern. No way to mistake it. And, it had been ten years, he was only human. Why the fuck not?

 

Out in an alley, in an stinking alley, a few feets away from the brothel, and yet he revelled in every moment of it. Thomas let his head fall against the wall as the man started to open his breeches. In the shadows a man turned around and walked away.

 

Thomas woke up in the morning to the sun shining in his face, the ocean in his view, the smell of salt, sand in his trousers and the sound of someone throwing up a few feet away. He felt giddy with all the possibilities life seemed to offer in that moment. He felt twenty again, maybe even younger. There were no walls, no chains, no laws that decreed him to be robbed of his most basic human rights. He was free. Just the night before he'd fucked a man, and he could almost still taste his come on his tongue. And there was nothing Alfred Hamilton or anyone else in London could do about it. London was so far away it might as well have been another world. And more acutely he understood why piracy might appeal to someone.

*

His second day in Nassau had brought a great deal more enlightenment as to the customs of Nassau. Concerning his search there was nothing though. He felt a certain sense of change here, a certain unease, like people were preparing, like something was about to tip or collapse. No one told him of course, the new face. Even though he assumed there must be many a new face in this harbor everyday.  
Towards evening things hadn't turned out as accommodating as the day before.

"For fuck's sake, he belongs to my crew." Thomas heard Charles Vane's grumbling voice.

The man himself pushed through the rows of people who had gathered around the brawl. The crowd parted for him as the Red Sea in the Bible. The man with whom Thomas had until a moment ago been in a rather unbalanced fight, let go as if he'd touched coals and vanished into the mass of people.

"A little bit different from fencing, huh?" Vane asked as he dragged him to the bar and poured them shots.

Thomas snorted. "I never did fencing. I can inform you that I used to be quite proficient with a sword, though I can't claim to ever have been in a battle."

"I'm a little disappointed. Would have thought in prison you'd have learned a move or two."

Thomas only shrugged wryly, knocking back another shot.

"So what made the noble Lord Hamilton try out his luck at fisticuffs?"

Thomas had to grimace at the use of his old title, he hoped it could be attributed to the taste of the rum.

"That gentleman manhandled one of the ladies from next door in a way that seemed entirely unwelcome to her. Should I have stood by and watched?"

"Well, that depends on whether you want to get your face bashed in the next time I'm not around." Vane laughed low in his belly, drinking straight from the bottle this time.

Thomas only smiled. "By next time I assume I will have learned a move or two."


	3. The sins we'd commit again

And then they were on the sea again, Nassau only a small image on the horizon and soon even not that anylonger, just a memory, a mirage of the place he'd dreamed of so often, especially later.

Falling back into the life at sea, of which he'd already had a short taste, was surprisingly easy. But, then, he was no stranger to monotony and following a routine. Compared to the suffocating walls of the Royal Hospital, the relative small perimeter of the ship inmidst the ocean seemed like an oasis of tranquility that at the same time offered new wonders every day.

His search for James and Miranda hadn't born any fruit yet, but there would be other places, other chances. For now he would learn. He was just getting to know the ropes. There was so much to learn.

*

One morning on deck, Thomas saw the branding on Vane's chest.

"How were you freed?" Thomas asked in a soft voice, allowing the other to just ignore the question if he chose to.

Vane turned around, surprise in his eyes.

"I wasn't freed. I freed myself."

"True good fortune is what you make for yourself," Thomas murmured.

Vane just looked at Thomas for a moment. "What do you want, Thomas?" he then asked curiously. "When I first met you, I thought, there's a man who's done with the world. Now I'm not so sure anylonger."

"Maybe all I want is a second chance."

"Ah, but there are not second chances." Vane chuckled, shaking his head. "There's only going on from where you are. Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life."

*

A crew of former slaves. Maybe he was right here after all, Thomas thought. Charles Vane, who had cut his own chains and Thomas' as well. People were scared of him, of him and his crew, that was easy to tell. Had been obvious, that night in Nassau, by the way the throng of people had parted to him, how his adversary had let off him the moment he'd heard he was part of his crew. Thomas wasn't though. Hadn't been. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe it had always been his mistake not to fear enough.

*

Charles watched Thomas Hamilton, as he stopped cleaning the deck for a moment to stare into the distance, his eyes unfocused and lost for a moment, as if he wasn't even here anylonger, as if it wasn't the vastness of the ocean he was seeing.

"...How lucky that I am not broken by what has happened," Thomas whispered wistfully.

Whatever he saw in the distance, he seemed to abandon it with one last wry quirk of his lips. As if to call ridicule on whatever memory had haunted him and the feelings it had stirred in him just the same.

*

Were ten years so long in a human lifespan, once you'd grown out of your teens where it had seemed like a lifetime? Could ten years define a man? Redefine him? But that was a stupid question. A year could change a person forever. Just one day could alter a person's fate.

*

When they took their first prize after their capture or rescue of Thomas Hamilton, he was of course required to join them during the boarding. He was part of the crew now after all. 

It was a big one, some merchant escorted by a number of soldiers from the Royal Navy.

Charles saw a different side of him then. As he watched him kill another man with... what he hadn't expected. He'd seen that there was something uncontained in him, something churning. But not every man managed to take the step to take up arms in the name of that feeling, not everyone managed to take that step gracefully. And something told him that Thomas Hamilton hadn't killed before. What he saw in his face was not fear, panic, or any other form of inadequateness he'd seen on so many other men's faces, who'd gotten dragged into the life unprepared, even on those who'd deemed themselves prepared. No, he saw something like calm resolve... and was that satisfaction as he drove his cutlass into the man's chest?   
A man who took a beating in a bar brawl but turned vicious in a real battle.

"Ten years in the asylum couldn't kill me, what makes you think you can?" A hissed sentence, full of venemous rage, directed at the English soldier, in proxy for a greater evil, a greater wrong. Uttered almost by itself, definitely not for the ears of anyone but the dying man's. It put together a picture that Charles had started to form over the past weeks. A picture that sometimes had felt like looking into a mirror and sometimes like the blurred countenance on a water surface disturbed by a dropped stone.

 

They found themselves beside each other later, both cleaning up.

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."

"What?" Charles looked up from the bowl of pinkish water.

"Marcus Aurelius. It's something I've always strongly believed in. I can't find it in me anylonger. And it makes me wonder, have I been wrong before, or am I wrong now."

"Whoever the fuck that is, I wholeheartedly agree with that concept. You don't repay a debt in kind, you pay them back with interest."

And somehow the words of the man, despite being completely beside the point, gave him an amount of comfort. And maybe they weren't so far beside the point either. Maybe they were exactly what he'd asked for.

*

Thomas jerked awake with a start. He wasn't sure if he'd actually screamed or if it had been only in his head.

"What is it you dream of?"

Charles Vane was sitting beside him, must have been sitting there for a while. Regarding him with unwavering scrutiny. A tiger's eyes in the dark. One man watching another's nightmares, with not exactly benevolent curiosity. It felt inappropriately intimate. A level of uninvited intimacy he didn't much care for since it had been oppressed on him.

"It depends," Thomas answered vaguely.

"Do you dream of the asylum? Vane asked, innocently enough and yet with a hint of victory, of challenge. Pride at having solved that puzzle, waiting for his reaction.

Thomas caught himself quickly though, unwilling to grant him the upper hand. "Not so much, surprisingly. Much more often I dream of my father." 'Telling me I will never be free again, that he's washing his hands of me' he didn't say. Thomas didn't carry his scars on his chest like the other man, and just because he'd seen the other's that didn't mean he owed them to him in a sort of tit for tat. "What is it you dream of?" Thomas countered. "And don't tell me you don't, because I know you must."

Charles laughed, a short rasp of breath expelled, hardly sound or humor in it, gaze going into the blackness that a few hours earlier had been the horizon.

"I didn't have a father but I guess you could say that man raised me. I killed him, a while ago now." Only now he turned back to face Thomas. "But you are right I still dream of him." So quickly the uncomfortable air, almost predatory, changed. With the simple admission of weakness on the other man's part. Charles Vane had always had a talent for putting him at ease. Thomas thought it was because Vane was honest. And because he was a master at wielding his own impression on others. When Charles Vane looked at other people he saw a lot.

"How did that feel?" Thomas asked, watching him intently.

"Killing him? It hurt."

"Why?"

"He nearly bashed my face in." Now Charles was laughing.

"Screw you." Thomas snorted. He kicked Vane from where he was still half lying on his makeshift cot.

"Cleansing," Vane continued then. "Like letting go."

"Cathartic," Thomas murmured.

"What does that mean?"

"The cleansing of the soul."

"Yes." Charles agreed.

"I'd like that too."

"Kill your father." A shrug. A smirk. Glinting white teeth in the darkness.

"He is already dead. Killed by pirates. A fine irony which I'm afraid you won't be able to appreciate as I do."

"It's not about who you kill. It's about what stops you from moving. It's about what you fear. Killing that man was a step. A step I took for getting from one point to the next." That quickly Vane was serious again.

He could hardly kill the entire house of lords, Thomas conceded. "I guess I have to do what I always did," he then said.

"And what is that?"

"Fight."

"Why bother if the nightmares won't go, though, huh?" Charles grinned ruefully, then went on. "What did your father do?"

"He buried me alive and threw away the key."

Charles laughed. "That's actually what »he« did. That was before I killed him though."

Now Thomas laughed.

"I see I can't best you in this."

"Don't know yet, maybe you can."

They sat in silence.

"Why do you sleep out here?" Charles asked.

"I wanna see the sky when I wake up from a nightmare."

Charles looked straight up at the night sky, then back at Thomas.

"Seeing the sky doesn't make you free."

Thomas considered that. "That is true. No, only being free makes you free." A pause. "Are you free now?"

Charles thought on that a moment.

"I think so. As far as a person can be free. I refuse to live by any rule but the one I have accepted. And before I allow any rule to be oppressed on me again I'll die fighting."

"Live to the best of your abilities and when life becomes unacceptable leave it without regret. The wise one who is truly free."

"You talk such bullshit sometimes, Tom."

*

Thomas stood by and watched as Charles all but turned inside out three men.

"I just have to ask," Charles said, wiping generous amounts of blood from his face but mainly only achieving to smear it further across. "Why are you not afraid of me?"

Thomas smiled mildly. "Are people usually?"

"That's a stupid question."

"Hmm," Thomas saw images flash in his mind. Joslene left in ice water for hours. Toby strapped to a chair with a muzzle over his face. Devices that were supposed to be for medical treatment while they looked like torture devices. Ezra dying of blood poisoning because no one bothered to clean the wounds after they'd beaten him up. And overall jeering faces. "I'm scared of cruelty, not violence," he finally said.

*

"So, you fuck men." Charles Vane started the conversation.

Thomas turned around, startled.

"Big fucking deal, is it in England?" It's said in the same deep, gravelly drawl the man always used, completely unimpressed. "Well, here it is not. The bane of the whole fucking Caribbean, the terror of the free world, Captain Flint himself fucks his quartermaster, for what I've heard. Or maybe he fucks him. Who knows?"

"Are you trying to reassure me?" Thomas asked, smiling slightly.

"Just making a few things clear. I doubt that's what they locked you up for, though."

Thomas laughed, sharp and painful.

"Well, I guess there's a difference between what they said and what they meant. Actually, it all started with Nassau..."

And so he told it. A story of betrayal. A story of ideals shattering in the face of reality. And really, he should have known it. He knew what world he lived in. 'Everyday I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil'. He'd sorely underestimated the lengths such ignorance would go to, though. So very, very gravely underestimated. A story of a life wasted. Or maybe not wasted. Was it foolishness, that still he believed that his plans were achievable? That he wasn't conquered yet, not broken. Was it foolishness or defiance, or merely delusion? He would have to let time be the judge of that.

"And in the end it was my best friend who betrayed me, my own father who destroyed me." Thomas finished his tale. "'The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane'." Thomas sighed. "I have certainly failed in that matter."

"Trust me," Vane spoke, voice gruff from what Thomas assumed to be unuse but found to be emotion. "I know about betrayal. Have been warned, didn't listen. Just couldn't learn my lesson." A brittle, disgusted chuckle. "Went back for second helpings, again and again." The fists in his lap, turned white at the knuckles. "Nearly cost me everything. And I still couldn't bring myself to kill that bitch. Makes me a bigger fool than you, I'd say. Killed her father because I couldn't kill her. Tasted stale on the tongue, tasted like cowardice, even while I did it. Saw her do the same thing to others before. Thougt I was special. Adding insult to injury, all by myself. Let it be said, Charles Vane needs no one but himself to make a fool of himself. Now she's shipped off to England, probably to hang. And still I felt the tug to go after her and save her. Finding your ship has taken my mind off that for a bit. Trying to find out what makes you tick."

"Not much as you see. An invert. A man who deemed himself smart and yet got betrayed by those closest to him, dragging those he loved dearest with him into ruin. And couldn't do a thing about it. I couldn't save myself, how could I ever dream to save Nassau?"

"I think you're giving yourself too little credit there." Vane frowned. "I've seen men who stopped being men by what had been done to them. I've seen men who were dead ruins, moving to someone else's tune until their bodies finally broke. I've seen men burning out from the inside, controlled by a pain that has taken over their lifes. Men who were too afraid or too dulled, to take an opportunity to change their fate even if it had presented itself. It is better to crash and burn than to never have lived at all. Count your blessings that you got out not any more insane than you were before."

There was a moment of silence, shared between the two of them in the understanding that they'd both been trialed by life and had both come out and refused to be anything but stronger from it. The short moment of reflection was broken only by Vane's disbelieving laughter.

"You wanted to fucking pardon the pirates of Nassau?"

"I take it you wouldn't accept a pardon?"

"Hell no! Tell me, would you? Would you have stepped up in front of your father and all the men who signed your warrant and told them yes, you were wrong? Would you have apologized?"

"To be honest, at one point in Bethlem, I would have said anything to be let out."

"Yes, but once free, would you have stopped fighting?"

They smiled at each other.


	4. A time and a place

They never argued. As a matter of fact no one recalled Thomas Hamilton ever having raised his voice. He would stand there a little bit detached, yet close enough to Charles. And once Charles had made a decision, he would say something, only loud enough for Charles to hear. Just a suggestion, a question. And the thing no one really dared to believe was, Charles would actual listen. Unlike Jack Rackham who had undoubtly also tried to reason with Charles, Thomas didn't try to impose his opinion, he hardly seemed invested in the decision at all. He didn't jump to challenges, didn't get intimidated. And even if Charles would stomp off sometimes, sooner or later he would leave his cabin and he would have changed his mind. And the more often it happened, the more it would happen that Charles would stay in the first place, listening to Thomas' explanations with a calm few knew of him, both of them deep in private conversation.

*

Charles pulled Thomas off the other man.

"You gotta be fucking–" Thomas started.

"Time for fucking will be later. We gotta go now."

As a flustered Thomas closed his breeches while still being dragged along, Charles went on unperturbed. "We got word on a price. We sail East, take the beam wind and beat to along the coast. Once we got her, we'll allide on leeside, but we gotta make sure she doesn't capsize–"

"I know nothing about navigation. So basically, the last thing I understood was sail East."

"Good enough a place to start as any." Charles smiled.

*

Things with Flint hadn't gone so good, after all the talk about shared goals. Not for long that was. He could admit to himself that he hadn't been the easiest to be around, but Flint had been too. He'd been the most short-tempered Charles had ever seen him. The tension between their crews could have been cut with a knife. And how could it have been different with their new quartermaster recovering from his injury only two doors away? Flint had been ready and willing to accept almost anything as a provocation. Given the rumors Charles had heard later it explained the personal offense Flint seemed to have taken. Charles hadn't wanted that to happen. Why would he? But it was done and he couldn't grovel in front of Flint. And again it had shown that he didn't have his crew under control. Hell, even Flint who seemed to constantly be at the brink of mutiny had a better hand at making his crew do what he wanted. Even before he'd gotten that silvertongue of his. And yes, in retrospective he probably shouldn't have said that thing about it having been a bigger problem if they'd cut out Silver's tongue. But Flint had provoked him. So alone he'd gone ahead and made his own hunt for ships of the Navy. Just because they didn't fight this war against each other, didn't mean they had to fight it together. Which brought him to the problem at hand. There was still the tiny matter of selling it to his crew. As long as he could still up-front declare it as a regular prize things were fine, but risking their lifes for something that had obviously no cargo other than soldiers and guns? Well, the guns for that matter they would gladly accept, but the risk of obtaining them? Not so much.

"What the hell do we get out of it, Captain?" His new quartermaster, since the end of the last one at the hands of Flint's enraged crew (a fate he would have met at Charles' hands otherwise) asked.

Vane had been fully aware the men would only follow him as long as it was in their benefit, when he assembled this crew. It had been desperate times. And honestly the times hadn't gotten that much better. He had wanted a crew who didn't care about the name 'Eleanor Guthrie'. But the problem was those didn't care about 'Charles Vane' either.  
Vane had tried to convey to them, why this benefited all of them. Just as he had tried with his attempt to free Flint, with equal numbers to show for. Before he could think something new up though, his queer, British, noble pirate stepped in front of Vane's ragged, dangerous crew and started talking.

"You get a future out of it, like the rest of us! If you want to have a future, you got to fight for it today! To them you are nothing but animals! And as such they will treat you. I hear many of you have been slaves, I know what that feels like! I know what it feels like to be beaten and ridiculed, to become less than a human, less than even a dog. When they refuse to acknowledge that you are a person."

Instead of being booed, ridiculed, beaten or right-out ignored, the men actually waited for him to finish his tale. And suddenly Vane could see a dark understanding in their eyes, some deep connection that man shared with them. They felt it and they were drawn to him.

And all of a sudden Vane had the support he had wanted.

 

"I started this ten years ago. I will make sure it gets damn well finished." Thomas told Charles grimly.

"You know, Tom, your ideas remind me of a guy I can't stand, but somehow hearing you say them pisses me off less."

"Well, I do have been said to have a way with words."

*

Life was a big kick in the teeth again. While they took fire in the beginning of their attack it had of course to be their doctor who got hit. The good news was, he was probably going to make it. The bad news, he was out cold for the time being. Yes, it was a shit day. And that wasn't even taking into account the musket burst that had hit him in the right shoulder.

"Hold still," Thomas admonished, getting back to his bloody task. "I still have to dig the fragments out."

"I can do that myself." Charles grumbled.

"On your back? I doubt that."

He had steady hands, Charles noted, and worked with concerntrated efficiency. And he didn't seem to have a problem with digging in another man's wound. But then, it wasn't that bad, Charles assessed. It wasn't like he had to burn out a missing limb or something.

"Your shoulder looks like someone tried to tenderize it, but you should be fine."

Charles got up and lit himself a smoke. 

"You know, you should probably lie down." Thomas gave to consideration, washing his bloodied hands.

"Whatever, mom." Charles replied.

Suddenly Thomas grabbed the smoke right from between Charles' lips, taking a long, weary drag himself.

"What a day. What a fucking great day." Thomas blew out the smoke, slumping down on the bed Charles had just refused to get onto.

Charles just stared at Thomas.

"Didn't know you smoked," he finally managed.

"On days like this, I do." Thomas didn't seem to intend to hand the cigarette back anytime soon.

Yeah, days like this. Charles bet Flint was going to love this as soon as he got word of it. "Fucking Flint," He muttered under his breath.

"Don't tell me you're more concerned with your little rivalry then with the very palpable threat of blood loss or blood poisoning?"

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Thomas. Unlike you, I've been shot before. Stabbed too for that matter." He snorted. "And me fainting over that little scratch that'd be definitely embarassing. Not that this fucker isn't going to take everything out of this story anyway. Going to make it look like I can't handle myself, or my crew. Like he always did. I can see him already." Charles strutted across the room, hands on his hips. "Ha-ha! I am the great Captain Flint. I would of course have managed to take that ship, with one arm tied behind my back. In my spare time I wrestle with sharks and read poetry. And you, sir, are a disgrace to piracy, I shall write a sonnet about your failures."

"Why does he irritate you so much?" Thomas asked, laughing.

"Weren't you listening?"

"What sparked this epic enmity? You're usually so easy-going."

"Yes, I am. He isn't. At first it was just some territorial stuff, and it's a little embarrassing, but in the beginning I thought he was trying to hook up with Eleanor. Didn't know he was gay yet. But now, now I just hate his personality."

*

"Do you sometimes wish you could turn back time?" Charles asked.

"Oh yes, but then I think, I've sacrificed too much to be anything but unapologetic now."

That wasn't the end of the conversation though, out of the blue Thomas asked about something that seemed to be very much in the past now.

"What happened in Charlestown?"

"Flint tried to talk to the govenor. Didn't work out so well."

"How did he think Peter Ashe would ever listen to him?"

"Dunno. Flint believes himself to be God's gift to humanity. Ended with him on trial and his lady friend dead."

"His lady friend? I thought you said he's gay."

"He is. No idea who the woman was. Most thought she was a witch who'd pledged his soul to the devil. Maybe he likes both. Didn't hook up with the quartermaster until after she'd died." Charles paused his musings. "Why are we discussing Flint's sex life? That's on my list of priorities like below what kind of venereal disease Greedy's caught at the last port."

Thomas laughed at that, covering his mouth with one hand. "Oh my goodness, that's definitely low on the list. But considering your lack of interest you are definitely quite well informed."

"Know your enemy and all that," Charles grumbled.

*

They were both still on a high from the battle, the blood still thrumming in their veins. All their senses still heightened, ready to strike any second. They hadn't even yet washed the blood off their faces as they entered the now deserted pub.

Charles looked again at the spray of blood droplets that had dried across Thomas' face, belonging to a guy Thomas' had fought, who Charles'd taken out at his own discretion despite it probably not having been necessary.

Thomas followed Charles' gaze. "Do you feel like you have to protect me?"

"Maybe I do."

Thomas regarded him closely. Without warning he pulled Charles towards him by his belt, a smirk on his face. He took a draught from the pint Charles had just gotten from the bar. Charles eyes followed the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, watched as Thomas licked away excess droplets that where running over the rim of the mug, before handing it back. 

His hand finally let go of the belt. They were still standing too close. "Well, I guess I should be grateful for it."

"You sure need it." Charles replied, his voice a little dry.

*

"Why are we so afraid of the loss of control when control is ever nothing but an illusion?" Thomas mused.

"I thought about that too, a while ago. Power that cares for nothing and fears nothing. Power that just is. It's not real. Power and control those are real things, but they're temporary. As long as you're aware of that you can have them," Charles said, leaning back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling.

Thomas took another drag from the pipe. He needed to escape his own demons for awhile tonight. That's why he'd accepted Vane's invitation. It wasn't like his life was spinning particularly out of control at the moment. It was just that the past had still too secure a grip on him. What he'd said about being unapologetical was a nice concept, one he clung to hard, at least outwards. But truth was, he regretted, he regretted horribly. And if he had the chance to listen to Miranda when she'd asked him to just back down, he would do it. But just the same, he knew if he'd travel back and tell the Thomas from then what he knew now, he wouldn't listen to himself. He would say that he'd make it better, that he wouldn't let it come to this. Because he had been an arrogant fool. And tonight he couldn't deal with that.

 

Charles wasn't sure how much time had passed and when they'd gotten from semi-philosophical discussions to being completely shit-faced. He wondered how waking up in the morning would be. Without one Jack Rackham who told him to get his shit together, but instead the guy beside him, being probably much worse off than him. He laughed heartily at the thought of it. 

Thomas looked at him mildly offended, with unfocused eyes. Then he handed him the pipe back and regarded him for a moment. "Hey, let's do that thing."

"You gotta be a bit more specific than that, Thomas." 

That seemed to be hysterically funny to Thomas as the other man broke down in a laughing fit.

"You know..." Another giggle bubbled up. "That thing where you take a drag and blow the smoke into the other's mouth."

"Sure." Charles took another lazy drag from the pipe, then leaned over to Thomas. His braids where falling into his face. Thomas cocked his head and bit his lip, then he grinned involuntarily and leaned forward too.

 

He blinked against the stray rays of sun getting in, looking at the task at hand with unconcealed mirth.

"Hey," Charles nudged Thomas with his foot. "Rise and shine."

Thomas didn't even bother to open his eyes. "Fuck you, Charles."

*

Charles cornered the captain of the ship in his cabin, together with the vanguard. The walls were stacked with bookshelves.

"Hey," Charles addressed his men. "That fancy book Thomas is always on about. What's its name again?"

"Meditations," the men answered in unison.

"Right." Charles put his dagger to the captain's throat. "Do you have that?"

"So... sorry?"

"It's by Marcus Aurelius," Charles growled.

The man stared at him dumbfounded, then gave a shaky nod. Charles withdrew the knife. The rattled man moved to one shelf and pulled out a book with shaking fingers, handing it to Charles.

"You like philosophy, huh?" Charles asked. "What else can you recommend?"

 

When Charles came back on deck, he handed Thomas a stack of books.

*

Thomas had never been one to refuse himself the indulgence of pleasure in any form. In Bethlem though he had learned that indeed as the Epicureans said, pleasure was the absence of pain.

Of course Thomas fantasized about Charles Vane. How not? When the man looked like the made flesh pirate fantasy of one of those cheep novels many of the London ladies liked to read. Exactly the type of pirate you'd want to save you from captivity and spirit you away to an exotic island. Actually his life would make a pretty good plot for one of those novels, including the innocent imprisonment. Only the ravashing part was still missing. But, then, Thomas was pretty sure he couldn't pull off a corset and tights.

The door was pushed open, and Thomas jerked up guiltily at Charles' sight.

"What is it?" Thomas asked, alarmed at Vane's expression.

"Well, how can I best put this." Then a smirk broke over his face. "The men elected you quartermaster."


	5. Your glorious pirate life right there

"Well, what if I don't?" Greedy asked, his bad breath hitting Thomas in the face quite unwelcome. "What if I take this bucket instead and bash your face in with it?"

"Mr Sanderson," Thomas said, turning to the man standing next to him. "Correct me if I'm wrong. What does the pirate codex state on the settling of violent matters while at sea? I recall it being prohibited?" The man beside him nodded. "But, Mr. Greedy, I encourage you to take this matter up again once we've made port. I will be at your service with either pistol or sword at your choosing."

The crowd slowly dispersed.

Vane walked past. "Not bad."

"Really?"

"I don't recall anyone ever having cited the codex and I would have probably just thrown him overboard, but sure, it worked."

*

"I didn't have a good quartermaster since Jack Rackham."

"I have no idea who that is."

Charles nodded wryly. "You and the rest of the world."

*

"Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours."

The crew looked at him dumbfounded. "What??"

"Let me rephrase this," Thomas started again. "The plan is a shit idea and tomorrow you'll thank me that I stopped you from following through with it just because you are blinded by the idea of a few more coins in your purse which you'd only spent on whores anyway, when instead you should be grateful that you still have a hand to jerk off with."

 

Thomas came walking into his cabin. "They agree with the plan."

Charles looked at him astounded. "I think I love you."

"And so you should. So you should."

"How the fuck did you do that?"

"On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use."

"Marcus Aurelius?"

Thomas smiled. "Not bad. Epictetus. I have read more than one book."

"You're such a posh tosser."

*

Charles held onto his bottle, pushing himself off the table. "You're actually a pretty good pirate."

Thomas lifted his head off the table, clinking his bottle against Charles'. "I'm an awesome pirate."

"And you really shouldn't be that articulate at this point."

"We all have our hidden talents."

*

They made port at Nassau again. It felt completely different than the last time, Thomas felt completely different. More at ease in his skin. He moved with confidence among them now.

Mr Greedy didn't take up the argument again, but to be honest Thomas hadn't expected him to either. Compared to someone like James, Thomas had been a rather mediocre sword-fighter, but compared to the men here he had a lot more technique and since he'd joined crew he'd gotten a reasonable amount of experience. Enough that he was willing to test it against as drunkard like Greedy. And concerning his marksmanship, let's say, he'd always had a steady hand.

*

"You're an idiot." Charles said. 

Thomas snorted, which was pretty disgusting, since he immediately tasted blood in his mouth.

"What was I supposed to do?" Thomas asked, carefully touching his bleeding nose. "Just back down? Would have made me look weak in front of the men. You wanted a fight, you got one."

Charles laughed. "If that's what you want to call it. You got your ass handed to you." He pulled Thomas off the floor. "You should be grateful that Mr. Greedy didn't take you up on your offer. That would have turned out pretty fucking embarrassing."

"Thank you for clarifying that. How fortunate that usually you're there to protect my ass." Thomas replied through the blood still running into his mouth.

Charles smirked, conceding that point, then grabbed Thomas' face and turned his attention to his nose. 

"I don't think it's broken," he finally assessed. "Shame. A broken nose would have given you a bit of an edge."

"Is the insane part not edgy enough?"

"You're not even really crazy."

"That's so sweet coming from you."

*

They're approached by a beautiful dark-skinned woman, who was rather more well-dressed than the women here usually were. She nodded rather curtly towards Charles, before she addressed Thomas.

"You're the one who helped one of my girls." 

"Thought you're no longer the madam." Vane said.

"They're still my girls," she answered, before turning her attention back on Thomas. "I couldn't quite believe it when they told me it had been someone of Charles Vane's crew." She inclined her head at both of them, before she continued in her rather charming accent. "Come with me, allow me to be your host tonight."

Thomas had by then already figured that this had to be Max.

 

And so they did. When exactly the three of them had ended up around a bonfire at the beach, drinking straight from the bottle and talking about lost loves was anyone's guess.

"To Eleanor Guthrie and James McGraw!" Charles raised his bottle. "Wherever they may be right now!"

Thomas and Max followed suit.

It was epitome of how drunk they were that night, how the events proceeded from there. It had probably been Max' idea to play truth or dare, Charles wouldn't have put it past Thomas either though. Actually, it sounded like exactly the kind of thing Thomas would do, when Charles thought on it. He quickly checked his own hand to see which bottle they were actually using for the game.

He wasn't sure what he'd just said, only Max was clapping her hands giddily. Charles regarded Thomas, who was smiling, the light of the bonfire dancing in his eyes.

"That's not a dare," Thomas said leaning forward.

And Charles was being kissed. By his quartermaster. Who turned out to be a really good kisser. He wasn't really sure who'd brought tongue into this, even though he had a vague memory of running his tongue over Thomas' bottom lip.

*

He couldn't quite let go of it. Cobwebs that were like ghost touches, barely visible when you tried to remove them, but there all the same. What exactly was it in particular? That hazy memory of Thomas kissing him in the shine of the bonfire? No, much more that moment just before it. That confident smile on Thomas' face. He could barely believe that he could even remember it. The open happiness and unabashed lust with which he'd eyed Charles, before he had just moved forward.

Why the fuck had he said that? Because it was a dare? Because he had wanted to see if Thomas would dare to kiss Captain Charles Vane? Because he knew Thomas dared anything when it came to him? Because he knew Thomas was attracted to him? Thomas wasn't obvious, but Charles could tell, could tell especially because he knew about him.

*

Thomas didn't put much stock into the kiss (not saying that he didn't replay it in his head with delight), but if he'd gotten riled up over every drunk man who'd kissed him, he certainly would have wasted a lot of time. He was only glad Charles didn't seem to have any hard feelings either. Thomas would have hated to lose this man who'd become his dearest friend and confidant since his release, over something as stupid as this. But that was the nice thing about Charles. He rarely blamed others for his own actions and was most of the times surprisingly sensible.

*

"Not fighting together is just unsensible!" Thomas stated, exasperated. "I heard the stories about Captain Flint, but I doubt that you refuse to work with him because your sensitive morals were hurt."

"I don't need the fucking opinion of a guy who wasn't even a pirate two months ago!"

"Honestly, Charles, you need any opinion you can get, the way this is going." Thomas replied, deadpan. "I may remind you that I'm acting in your best interest too."

"I don't care!"

"That is certainly an approach I have no argument against." Thomas answered, rolling his eyes. "Why on earth should it not be possible to come to a reasonable solution?"

"His quartermaster lost a leg." Charles finally uttered, arms open in capitulation. "I wasn't there. Wasn't involved. But they were my people."

While that was certainly a horrible fate, Thomas assumed that it wasn't too uncommon among pirates. Nevertheless he could tell that Charles felt affected by it. Saw remorse in the tense set of his jaw. Like he was waiting for Thomas to judge him.

"Back when I lost my first crew," Charles continued. "When Eleanor blacklisted me, they all dropped me, without a second thought. 'Cept Jack and Anne. But that went to shit too." His face turned wistful, even as he snorted. "Trust me you wouldn't want to hear the half of it." He made a dismissive gesture. "There is no such thing as a bond between me and this crew. And no matter how much they fear me that doesn't mean they won't stop following me. And that's your glorious pirate life right there."

"It's not easy inspiring emotions in people. Manipulate them as some would say. Trust me, I should know. I had to learn that. Debate. Wielding words to effect. I spent hours honing that skill. Miranda would look at me with such zeal. Like I'm the best thing ever. Would never believe that it wasn't something I was born with. But it was all hard come by. Some are born with it. I wasn't." He gave a grim smile. "You have other qualities," Thomas went on. "People are scared of you. I can't say anyone was ever scared of me."

"Your father must have been, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to get rid of you."

Thomas smiled at that. Charles leaned forward putting a hand on Thomas arm. A heavy, steady weight.

"Thank you, Thomas."

"You're very welcome."

*

It was one of the crew who'd told him. But of course it would be on Max's command. Must have given him that order when they'd made port. His crew. But sure, there was hardly a man who didn't take orders from Max. Maybe it was Max' revenge for what happened then. Her payback. Because they both knew what kind of man Thomas was. And she had seen. She had seen that Charles cared what Thomas thought of him.

"You let them do this?" Thomas asked.

"Of course chivalry would be your thing."

"That's not chivalry. That's decency."

"Don't act naive, Thomas. I know you're not. I'm sure you've done things in your life that you didn't care to do but that needed doing." Charles said angrily.

"Rape doesn't seem to be the common practice among other crews," Thomas pointed out coldly. "Otherwise there would be no need for the excessive use of Miss Max's facilities."

"Act affronted all you want, but I had to make a statement and I did." For the first time Charles wished Jack back. Jack had understood. Jack was a pirate. Thomas wasn't.

"Do you think saying that frees you of the responsibility for your actions?"

"Fuck you, Thomas," Charles spit out tiredly. "What good did it do you to follow the path of righteousness? Ten years in the asylum, that's what it got you."

With that the conversation was over. No apologies. No nothing.

*

After that Thomas was still bitingly polite and impeccably fullfilled all his duties. He didn't start antagonizing Charles' decisions. Didn't show disdain in any other form. But there's not one word too much. Not one fucking quote all day. Charles wondered who he told instead, because he was sure Thomas wouldn't be able to go all day without spurting some philosophical bullshit.

Charles wasn't any better, though worse at hiding his anger.

*

Darkness and worse faded to nothing, a kick back into reality, never ever graceful the step over the threshold. His hand went to the throat of his assailant first.

"It's okay." Thomas arms were still around Charles, one hand lightly tugging one his wrist, more reassuring than anything, certainly not scared. "You're save."

Charles let go of his throat, pushing him away in the same motion. Still his breath came out heavily, the claws of the night still securely attached and drawing blood. "I'm fine! I'm..."

"Of course you are." Voice steady and calm.

Charles couldn't stand the pity he saw in Thomas' eyes, the understanding, couldn't fathom what it would mean to his name if this became public, even though he knew that Thomas Hamilton was the last man who'd use this weakness against him, even after Charles had invaded his peace and his mind, had watched his nightmares. Thomas Hamilton would never sink that low.   
Eleanor once tried to ask him about it. It didn't work. It didn't work like that. Albinus would haunt him to the end of his days, he wouldn't give him more power by talking about it. By putting a name to the paralyzing fear he'd felt again when he'd returned there for the last time and had been faced with the man. The fear that only a slave could know, only a boy. But Charles wasn't a boy anylonger and Lord Hamilton didn't know dick about slavery. He hadn't been raised as property, hadn't been born as someone else's kettle.

For days on end not a word and now this. What the fuck was he even doing here? He should have fucking damn well minded his own business. Charles wanted him to leave.

Thomas did neither leave nor shut up though. "Every one of those out there has his own devil on his back, his own demons to carry with them wherever they go. Anyone who denies it is a coward. And as far as I know, half of those out there saw you kill yours. What is left now is nothing but a shadow. To remind you how far you've come."

Of course, Thomas would be the bigger person, being there for him in his plight, no matter how unwanted. And nevertheless, in his core, down to his sweat-soaked back and his shaking hands he was pathetically grateful that Thomas was there, that Thomas kept talking.

 

After that things went back to normal. Without talking it out. Cause they both were unwilling to go without the other and yet steadfastly certain to be in the right.


	6. Body and Mind

"What are you reading?" Charles asked as he walked into his cabin, where Thomas yet again had made himself at home, sitting in Charles' chair, feet on the table.

"You really want to know?" Thomas asked amused, not even looking up from the book.

"Sure."

Thomas started reading alound, "'So do men lose nothing more than coin? Is not modesty lost? Is not decent behavior lost? Is it that he who has lost these things has sustained no loss? Perhaps you think that not one of these things is a loss. But there was a time when you reckoned this the only loss and damage, and you were anxious that no man should disturb you from these words and actions.'"

Charles looked over his shoulder at the pages. "Is it that you fear you've lost your great principles? As long as you still worry about that shit, I'd say you're on the safe side."

"I just like to remind myself from time to time what is important. What is man but a rational animal. Then, by the rational faculty, from whom are we separated? From wild beasts. When we act contentiously and harmfully and passionately, and violently, to what have we declined? To wild beasts."

"But you like it, don't you?"

Thomas slammed the book shut with a startled laugh.

"I see you out there when we fight. And you like it. And I see you in here. Why shouldn't you be able to be both? 'Rational animals' you said. That's what we are. So we are rational, so we use our faculties, that doesn't make us less of an animal. At the end of the day what is any of us other than that?"

Thomas regarded him for while, then said, "It is a waste of your mind that you never learned how to read."

Charles made a gruff, uncomfortable, dissentive noise.

"Imagine how much benefit it would give you on a haul and in business," Thomas coaxed. "No merchants trying to fuck you over."

"No one dares to try and fuck me over."

"You say that now, but once I start putting away a little bit on the side, you'll be wondering why the hell you can't even afford a pint at the pub anylonger." Thomas threw him a shit-eating grin.

"I've killed men for less, you know." Charles grinned back, snatching the book from Thomas' lap and regarding it contemplatively.

"So I'd assume."

*

That was it what constantly set him off his game with Thomas. The antithesis of the adamant, concentrated Thomas ceaselessly working towards something, calm, collected. The Thomas who burned with violence that he daren't admit that randomly would find an outlet, he who sometimes seemed just as feral as Charles himself. And that Thomas who drank and celebrated without concern or limit, who fucked with abandon, dirty and uncontained. One who was in control, one who wasn't and one who didn't care about control. The first one he respected, needed and also admired a bit. The second one he felt akin to. And the third one he felt drawn to.

Charles wanted– Charles needed a partner who was strong, who could meet him at eyelevel. He couldn't content with anything less. But with Eleanor everything had been about control. Who had control over the other. How much control they were willing to give up. Charles had been willing to give up control to her. But in the end it hadn't been enough. He thought with Thomas that might be different. But that was a stupid thought. He didn't even know where that thought came from.

*

Getting high together was probably a sign for how fucked up they both were. Charles had never exactly questioned his use of the drug. But seeing himself reflected in Thomas, he questioned a few things. He saw that the other didn't just do it for fun. Saw that the other only did it when he was hurting. Which made him wonder whether he was hurting too. Especially after that fucking dream those nights ago. Had it been the fear of losing Thomas that had washed that fucking ghost back up again? Had he been too fucking weak, so fucking shaken that he hadn't been able to bottle this up? That he'd been dependent on someone holding his fucking hand, like he was a little kid?

"What're you thinking about?" Charles asked to distract himself from those thoughts.

"Mostly how I want to lick your abs." Thomas paused. "You know what? Opium has been a really bad idea."

Charles shrugged, which wasn't that easy in his half-lying position. "You could, if you wanted to."

"I'm not sure whether you're being charitable, horny or just that stoned."

"Maybe I'm both."

It was like another truth or dare. Just a joke maybe, or maybe not. But then Thomas got actually up and dropped to his knees in front of Charles. And wow, Charles was hard, which wasn't that unusual for him in general, but what the fuck?

"Lick a little bit lower while you're at it." Charles commented, the time for his brain catching up with his tongue long gone by now. How the fuck was this even happening? Thomas' tongue on his skin. Charles felt something crazy like a giggle ready to bubble up.

"You wish." Thomas replied, smirking up at Charles from where he'd just licked a wet stripe along Charles' stomach.

"No, you do."

"Think you can handle it, sailor?"

"Only one way to find out."

 

"Fuck." Charles let his head fall back into the assortment of pillows. "Can we do this again when I'm sober?"

"If we still remember."

Thomas clumsily crawled towards the pillows, idly wondering whether he should bother to drink something but deciding it would require too much moving. He flopped down with a groan. Charles beckoned him with a hand. Thomas heaved himself up once more, giving Charles a questioning look, when he was pulled into a sloppy kiss.

*

Should they talk about it? Should they not talk about it? Thomas didn't know. He could imagine what Charles would say if he asked though. 'Are we fucking women or what, Thomas?' And sure, a bloke could fuck a bloke without there being any drama. And Thomas was very much for there not being any drama.

*

After a while Thomas considered that he was the sensible and grown-up of the two of them and took a heart.

"You know, we could do this again, if you wanted to. No harm done."

"You're not someone I toy with, Thomas." Charles said angrily. "You're too important for that."

Thomas didn't really know what this was supposed to tell him. He was pretty certain that he was receiving mixed signals. But he was certainly not going to push him on this. He would wait to see what Charles was going to do.

*

Nothing as it turned. Charles did exactly nothing. Not that their relationship had suddenly become awkward or Charles avoided him, but there were no approaches of any sort. Fair enough. Friends it was.

*

"We're out of provisions." Thomas informed Charles.

"Tough luck." Charles replied. "We're too far away from either Tortuga or Nassau right now."

"You want the crew to starve?"

 

"You want us to sail into the harbor of Port Royal?" Charles repeated again the plan Thomas had just proposed in front of the crew. "With a pirate ship?"

"That's right," Thomas affirmed, unfazed by Charles' obvious lack of faith in the quality of his plan. "Who is currently mayor in Port Royal?"

"Kensington," The Bosun replied.

"Good. I know that family." Thomas seemed completely secure in his believe that his plan would be followed through with no matter what. "I'd need a wig and some proper clothing."

"I have that." A voice spoke up.

Heads turned to the crew member who'd spoken up.

"Kept it from our last haul," the man explained selfconciously.

"Very good, Mr Pike." Thomas said.

 

Thomas looked at the horizon in concentration.

"Put down the black."

"Put down the black!" Charles repeated to his men.

 

They sailed into the harbor of Port Royal and at this point it was officially too late to turn around. And Charles wondered why the fuck he'd listened to that tall, blond, crazy man who was just now giving some final orders to the crew. They could have gone shark hunting instead. Had worked good enough for Flint. This here was a Flint kind of move, like sailing into a ship-killer storm. Charles would never to something so rash... Okay, maybe he'd made some spur of the moment decisions in his life too. But seriously this... this was as stupid as it got. And now Charles was going to completely roll with it.

They got off the ship. A port official immediately approached them.

"State your name and business."

"Jeremiah Hamilton. From London. We need to stock up on provisions."

 

Somehow along the way they ended up actually talking to the Mayor himself. And all Charles could do was what he assumed everyone else did during his sometimes less thought through ideas. Lean back and hope to see the end of it.

"What brings you to the Americas?" The mayor asked over a cup of tea.

"I'm on my way to Savannah to visit Abigail Ashe. The poor child is all on her own now. She must feel bereft."

"Certainly. It was an outrageous tragedy what happened in Charlestown. Those fucking animals. Your first time here, My Lord?"

"No. I've been here before, when I was younger. But what can you say, Whitehall has been keeping me busy. And of course my family." Thomas shrugged with a smile.

"Yes, well, the family." The man agreed. Then he threw a suspicious glance at Charles. "Who is that?"

"This is my scout." Thomas explained. "I got him from one of these horrid slave mines, when he was young. He never quite adapted, the poor boy."

"That's quite charitable, Sir."

"Well, we all must, mustn't we?"

"Certainly."

 

They got away with new provisions and the well-wishes of the Mayor of Port Royal. Without an ounce of trouble.

"Who's Jeremiah Hamilton?" Asked, when they were back in his cabin, Port Royal long having vanished on the horizon.

"Oh, my uncle. I doubt the good Mayor has ever seen him. God knows my uncle never set foot out of England." Thomas laughed.

Charles watched him as he took off his wig and stepped out of his fancy high-heeled shoes, kicking them into a corner without concern. There was a small smile on his face as he regarded the wig for a moment before it too was discarded unceremoniously. Charles watched as piece by piece everything vanished that had made him look like a gentleman only moments ago (even though they all knew that what made him look like a gentleman was something no one could take off him) and he started to look again like the man Charles had come to know. He pulled his blond hair out of the short ponytail which had secured it under the wig, and shook his head.

"You know what they say about the calm before a storm," Charles said. "When's your storm coming, Tommy?"

"Soon enough."

*

"What the fuck's the matter with him?"

"Don't know, Captain. Thomas' down with something. Ate something wrong maybe."

 

"Hey," Thomas smiled weakly. "Thanks for letting me stay."

"Not a problem."

"That's a really nice bed." Thomas patted the mattress with one pale hand.

"You got a fever." Charles smiled softly, fondly to be perfectly honest.

"I missed beds. The hammocks are nice enough, I guess," Thomas rambled on.

"What did you sleep in at Bethlem?"

"The floor, mostly. I don't count being strapped to a table."

Charles crouched down beside the bed. Then he leaned in and pressed a short and rather chaste kiss to Thomas' lips.

Thomas made a contented and sleepy noise, reaching up clumsily and brushing a hand across Charles' forehead. "You're so nice and beautiful. I don't understand how Eleanor ever left you."

The hand fell back onto the mattress.

"Go back to sleep." Charles said with gruff affection.

*

Thomas considered that this time they should really talk about it. But then he thought, fuck it.

Thomas found Charles down in the ship's hull, doing something like inspecting the cargo, or whatever. Which as a matter of fact would have been Thomas' job. He could tell by the way, Charles tensed for a second and then relaxed again that he was well aware of his arrival, even though the other didn't turn. He pushed Charles against the wall and moved up close, whispering in his ear.

"Alright, Charles, let's talk about feelings."

"Careful, Thomas, this might end with a bloody nose for you again." Charles said, moved out of Thomas' grip and spun around.

Thomas wasn't particularly fazed, it's not like he had entertained the fancy he could keep Charles there any second longer than he wanted to be kept. He took Charles' face in both of his hands and kissed him.

"I hope you don't mind me saying so, Charles, but your behaviour about this matter is rather irritating."

"You're not a whore but someone I actually give a shit about," Charles said, a glare accompanying his words, like Thomas should already know all that. "So, yeah, I'm awkward."

Thomas smiled at that, first a little surprised then broadly. 

"How many relationships did you have in your life?" Thomas asked.

"Eleanor." Almost defiantly. "You?"

"A bit more than that."

"Fuck you." Charles grumbled.

"That's the idea."

*

"How old are you actually?" Thomas asked suddenly, as they stood in Charles' cabin pondering over the maps.

"Thirty-fiveish." Charles shrugged vaguely.

"That's not very precise."

"Well, fuck you Tom, it's not like I got a exact birthday or something."

"Well, if it's any consolation. You're a lot wiser than I was when I was your age." Thomas paused. "Huh. 'When I was your age'. I completely underestimated how much fun it would be saying that."

"You and that age thing," Charles chuckled. "You spent the first thirty years of your life in a cushy, comfy manor. I'd done more living at an age where you'd learned how to read and write. And maybe how to tie a bow tie."

"That's for sure. And I have to say I like your proactive life approach. All I'm saying is, I'm older than you. I'm more fucked up than you."

"Don't treat me like a little boy." Charles pushed Thomas back onto the bed. "And speaking of my proactive life approach, how about we make you a little bit more fucked-up?" Charles grinned at him.

Thomas rolled his eyes but grinned back. "Have you ever had sex with a man?" he than asked, his hand in Charles' hair stopping the other from reaching his lips.

"No, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Or," Than a shark-like grin flickered over his face, he flipped them over and spread his legs. "you could just show me."

"Would you like me to fuck you, Charles?" Thomas asked, his mouth close enough that his lower lip was catching on Charles' mouth as he ghosted his mouth over his face. "Is that what you're asking?"

*

Around them the rain was still splattering down mercilessly and water was running down both their faces in streams. Charles hair was sticking to his face, long strands soaked through.

Thomas looked at him, grey eyes seeming as dark as the rain-heavy hair. "God, your so goddamn beautiful," Thomas than said.

Charles knew he was fucked then. "You think the crew will think we got killed if we stay away a while longer?"

"Fuck the crew," Thomas said. "And fuck me."

*

"There's something we need to talk about."

Charles rolled his eyes, but in a humoring way. "Yes, yes, I know. 'Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.'"

"That's not what I'm talking about." Thomas said, unable to contain a small smile. "I don't want to make implications about your own feelings, but to me you are very, very important. So, I can't withhold this from you. I have someone else, Charles. Whatever this is, I can't fully invest myself in it."

"Oh, yes, James McGraw. I remember." Charles laughed. "That guy who might be here, or might not be here, or might just as well be dead? Think he waited for you these ten years?"

"And there you say I shouldn't treat you like a little boy."

"No, seriously, Thomas. You said it yourself. 'No one can lose either the past or the future. It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived.' I'll take my chances with the present moment. Let's worry about the one that got away once he shows up again."


	7. Benevolent Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flint and Thomas meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, another two chapters to go after this.
> 
> Important:
> 
> * At this point Teach has already returned and joined forces with the Nassau Alliance  
> * Nassau's already been taken by Woodes Rogers
> 
> I'm not 100% satisfied with this chapter, but at this point I just wanted to get it underway, so to speak. ;)

McPercy cut down the soldier to Thomas' left.

"Thank you," Thomas nodded at the man through sweaty bangs that had escaped his ponytail, before turning back to the next attacker.

"Anytime, Thomas."

*

It was quiet. Nice and quiet. Peaceful. Through the opened bull's eye of Charles' cabin the fresh night air came in, smelling of ocean and freedom, of night and the vast aloneness of the sea. It was comforting. Only a few hours ago they had slaughered the crew of a slave trader, sinking the captain of the crew alive. And now here they were, sitting on Charles' cot, their shared cot, in relative silence, only illuminated by the moon shining in through the window, doing absolutely nothing. Just sitting there. It felt nice and domestic and at the same time incredibly free, like it could have just been the two of them here, the slight swaying of the ship, the tapping of the waves against the ship's bow, each other's breathing, the vague sillhouette of the other, the place where their arms and thighs touched on the cot, warm skin against warm skin, scrubbed free of the blood that had covered it during the day.

*

Charles made past a few cut down Spanish soldiers, straight for Thomas, who was just sheathing his sword.

"You good?"

"I'm fine." Thomas smiled. He didn't particularly fear death, after everything he'd been through. Not that he had any inclination to meet his maker prematurely. If he'd had, he'd have had ten years of plenty of reason and opportunity. And then of course, he was quite aware that there was always someone of the crew sticking close to him during battle, rotating but unfailably accounted for. He found it charming that they tried to go subtle about it for his sake, even more so that they thought they actually were.

They ransacked the cabin of the Spanish captain, as Charles scanned over a couple of haphazardly burned documents and letters, putting his newly aquired reading skills to good use.

"I didn't think I'd be the one saying this. But if this is what I think it is there might be a less bloody way for winning this war."

*

They passed the churning ruins of a city, without making port there. Charles followed Thomas' gaze.

"Who did this?" Thomas asked.

"Remember Charlestown?"

"Captain Flint?"

"The very same."

"Why did he do that?"

"Ask him yourself. We're about to meet him."

*

"Flint," Jack came walking into his cabin. "We just received word from Charles Vane. He wants to talk again. He thinks it's in all our interests when we don't try to work on the same thing from two angles."

"What brought that on?" Silver mused.

"Charles Vane and the animals he commands will be no help whatsoever for what we are trying to do here. He's proven that much so far." Flint stated.

"And yet we need him." Silver commented offhandedly.

*

"Welcome, Charles, so glad you could make time." Jack welcomed him.

"For you always, Jack." Charles smiled back toothily.

"Who's your friend?"

"That's Tom, picked him up near Charlestown. He took your position."

"A pleasure." Thomas extended his hand, which was shaken hesitantly by Jack Rackham, all the while eying him with distrustful contemplation and mild bewilderment. Even though, a lot less hostile than the lady in pants leaning against the wall was, whose red hair made him wistfully think of James.

 

"Who the fuck is this?" Teach asked, eying Thomas with distaste.

"That's my new quartermaster."

"Since when do you have a new quartermaster? Looks a lot like that last one. The squirrely one with the weird clothing style. All talk, no muscle."

Charles laughed. "You'd be surprised."

"You realise I'm standing right beside you, Edward, do you?" Jack remarked, slightly miffed.

"So," Charles looked around. "When's Flint giving us the pleasure of his company?"

"He should be here by tomorrow."

"How's the quartemaster doing?" Charles asked then, softly.

"Last time Mr Silver and I spoke he was doing fine." Jack replied. "As always a lot more reasonable than his captain."

 

"Seriously, son." Teach started again, later when the two of them were sharing a pint in his cabin. "You could do better. If you're that desperately looking for a new quartermaster, I could just give you one of my crew. A real man. A fighter. Not such a little pencil-pusher."

Charles only smiled, putting his mug down, before fixing Teach with his gaze. "You once told me a man whose limits cannot be known is a very hard man to defeat. I'm yet to find his."

*

"Hey, watch your mouth! You don't get to fucking talk about him like that! You're not fucking fit to lick Thomas' boots!"

Teach came walking by, hearing the ruckus, finding one of his own at odds with one of Charles' crew.

"What's the matter here?"

"Nothing." Charles' man said. "Just settling something here."

*

"So, Thomas." Teach approached him on deck at night. The two of them seemingly the only ones still awake who weren't on duty. 

"Sir." Thomas acknowledged him with a nod.

"Are you sleeping with my son?" Teach inquired, still perfectly pleasant.

Thomas was vividly brought back to a conversation with his father. 

~  
"My own son! You're sleeping with this Navy Lieutenant? That carpenter's son?!"

"Well at least you bothered to check his background. Would it make you feel better if he were a lord's son? I've had my share of those as well."

"You disgust me."

"Well, that is your problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt."  
~

He had been so carefree back then, so safe and secure in his believe of what was right and wrong and how he was entitled to his views.

"Is he in the habit of sleeping with his quartermasters?" Thomas asked instead.

Teach laughed. "I can't say he is. But I can tell if my boy is screwing someone."

"I meant no disrespect by evading, but I'd rather keep your son's confidence without knowing his view on that matter." Thomas replied.

Teach shook his head, musingly. "Now that boy turned a faggot. That seems to be going around."

"Is that going to be a problem?" Thomas asked, his tone considerably cooled.

"Oh, certainly not." Teach laughed. "Charles turned against me for his last lover. I'd rather you and me remain on good footing."

*

"You an' him fucking probably makes it easier." Anne slumped down beside Thomas, putting her feet on the table.

"Pardon, Madam?" Thomas asked.

"'Bout Jack," she said, like that would explain anything. "Don' mind him. He gets jealous, ya know. Cause of Charles. Wants ta be his best friend. Would probably still want to be his quartermaster if he wasn't so fucking obsessed with sailing his own ship. So, the two of ya fucking makes it easier. Doesn't have ta be jealous 'bout that." With that she got up again and left him the way she'd come. 

And Thomas had the feeling that she had actually accepted him among their lot.

*

Thomas boarded one of Teach's ships, ignoring the surprised and partly hostile looks from the man's crew he made straight for Blackbeard's cabin.

"So, I heard you want out." he said, as Teach raised his head from whatever he'd been writing.

"I already am out." Teach replied, a slightly amused smile on his face. "Nassau is no concern of mine anylonger. I just stayed to tell Charles myself. And sadly he refuses to follow my lead in this."

"Your fleet makes out half the ships we have, is that right?" 

"Yes." Teach still seemed in a humoring mood.

"Our chances will sink drastically with only the ships of Captain Flint and ours left."

"You'd all be better off following my lead, boy. Flint and I have never agreed on a lot of things, but this time he's just being unreasonable. Why fight for a city that turned it's back on us. A city full of cowards. That's not worth anything. Certainly not worth spilling my men's blood."

"Without Nassau, what's left out there for any of us?"

"I've been without Nassau for the last eight years. I'll get by. And those of you who'll survive Flint's war, maybe you'll get by too."

"I've never met the man, but we're not fighting for Flint here. We're fighting for what we believe in, for our home!"

"You've been a pirate for what? Two months? I doubt that Nassau is exactly your home."

Thomas smiled. "A little longer than that. And, yes, I might not been there for a long time, but my relationship to Nassau is a far deeper and profound one than you could possibly imagine. And tell me, why is it, the moment Eleanor Guthrie disappeared from Nassau you came back? Why is it, if Nassau means so very little to you? What life was it, you had those past eight years? You're glory vanishing, your memory disappearing from people's memories with each passing day. You say, Nassau isn't what it used to be anylonger. That you're disappointed, ashamed of it." Thomas looked at Teach. "Now I see two options for you. You can cry over a past that is irrefutably gone, or you can build something new here with us. You can fight for something that means something except for fighting itself. Charles means something. Nassau means something. You think the people there are weak. But they are just afraid. They're afraid of something more powerful than they are. And who wouldn't be? Who wouldn't be afraid of the power of England, when no one's dared to oppose them before. Because it seems impossible that anyone could try and succeed. Everyone will think it's impossible, until we prove them differently. We aren't afraid to fight. Are you?"

*

Then the man himself arrived. As coincidence would have it Thomas was busy sorting out a trifle between one of Charles' men and one of Teach's crew, so he wasn't there to greet the new arrivals.

 

Jack received Flint as he boarded the Spanish Man of War.

"Crisis averted," Jack started the conversation. "Teach wanted to ditch us, but Thomas somehow managed to turn him around. God knows how."

"Who's Thomas?" Flint's eyebrows drew together.

"Charles' new quartermaster."

Flint snorted at that. "What did he do? Challenge Teach to a duel?"

"Actually..." Now it was Jack's time to narrow his eyes. "I think he talked to him."

 

They had spent approximately two minutes in the same room by then, of which most had been taken up by the pretense of polite greetings.

"You have to see my point in this!" Flint insisted. "Even you can't be that bullheaded!"

Charles only leaned back in his chair lazily. "Don't try to convince me, Flint. Convince my new quartermaster. Thomas! Your type is needed here."

Flint only rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, the infamous Thomas. I can't wait to–"

The door opened with a creak and Thomas entered. Unlike his usual suave demeanor, Charles watched Thomas freeze and his mouth hanging open mid-greeting. Actually he watched both of them do that.

"Thomas."

"James."

The exchange of first names should have been an indicator, maybe. Nevertheless Charles was still hit by it with surprise as they took a few quick strides towards each other and started kissing. Charles had a really bad feeling grow inside his stomach that he knew where they knew each other from. James Mc-Fucking-Graw. Ironic that his two least favorite persons turned out to be the same man. Fuck.

*

"Let's go, Thomas." Flint said.

"...Where?"

"To my ship, of course."

Thomas spoke slowly, after a short period. "I will gladly come to meet your crew, the men you've been fighting with, but I'm afraid I won't be able to stay."

"What do you mean? Are you afraid they won't let you go? Trust me, that needn't concern you, I will gladly–"

"I have responsibilities here."

"Responsibilities? For these men?! If you even want to call them that. They need a cage and a handler."

"Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them. I won't just bear with them." Thomas said. 

"Don't you quote to me now, Thomas!" Flint replied sharply. "This is not a matter of philosophy. These men won't conform to your ideals anymore than London society did." Flint stopped, breath stuttering shortly at the realisation of what he'd just said. In a more level voice he continued. "Vane's crew isn't like the other pirates around here. They're animals. They're dangerous. You have now idea how dangerous."

"I believe I'm the one who sailed with them the past three months." Thomas replied very soberly. "Charles isn't a bad person and I won't leave him like that."

"Charles?" Flint laughed bitterly. "God help us. Let's leave Vane's strength of character out of the question here. He can't control his crew. He steers them into a vague direction and then all bets are off."

"I can."

"The last time my crew was left alone with his crew, one of my men lost a leg."

Thomas didn't miss the way James tensed on that last part, how he winced at his own words.

"I'm sorry." He said carefully. "I heard what happened," He didn't say 'Charles told me what had happened'. "But the men who did it are dead."

Flint let out a bitter huff, indicating that those weren't enough for him.

"Well, I can't force you off this ship, can I?" He turned around to leave.

"James." Thomas went after him. "I... I don't mean this as a slight against you. But I owe him this much. I owe him my life. And I want to. I want to help him. And in this war– This is our war, James. On this ship I can make a difference. On your ship, what could I be, other than an attachment to you? Don't deny that it will make your life easier with me on this ship, on this crew."

Flint's jaw worked.

"Alright. But if you get hurt, Thomas, if you get hurt on this ship–"

"James, I already got hurt, I'm not scared of it. And they know it. I have less to fear from these men than I did from my own father."

*

They boarded the Walrus.

A man came walking towards them. The first thing that announced him was the clang of his walk. In his eyes was neither the deference nor fear Thomas had seen on the other men since they'd boarded the ship. In his eyes there was the clear demand for an update on the situation, and the secure knowledge that he was in the position to make demands towards Captain Flint. Thomas knew immediately who he was, if maybe not by name. If the steady sound on every step had left any room for mistake, the confidence in his eyes would have confirmed what Thomas had known from the pain in James' eyes on the recounting of the tale earlier.

James stopped, seeming to brace himself, his gaze held mercilessly by the curious eyes of the man in front of them.

"This is John Silver," he told Thomas. "My quartermaster," he added clumsily.

And that confirmed the story Charles' had told him on a night many, many days ago, when they'd learned to trust the other without inhibitions. When Thomas had found pure goodness in a place least expected. A story told to comfort him, by a man who had nothing to gain by it, who did it only because of what he perceived to be right and wrong. He and James had more in common than they'd both admit to. They both had a very strong, undeniable sense for right and wrong. Both unable to accept the ruthlessness of a greater power. If he could make those two men work together they'd be nigh unstoppable.

James went on, "John," a breath length to steel himself. "This is Thomas Hamilton."

He saw the easy confidence leave the other's eyes for only a fleeting moment. Then a hand was extended to him, with a smile that would have been dazzling once upon a time, but seemed slightly off, feral, by the effort it took to uphold it with the constant strain that seemed to lock his jaw and the pain and latent desperation that clouded his eyes, that made it look like he had difficulties going through a motion that Thomas could tell had come natural to this young man before. He was beautiful, despite the fatigue that had worn out his features only too recently and the fact that his shaggy hair and beard seemed to serve the purpose of illustrating the inner havoc that was visible maybe to Thomas only, because he knew what to look for.

"How did you happen to land on Charles Vane's ship?" John Silver asked him, some of the glinting curiosity returning.

"I am the quartermaster." Thomas replied.

John Silver looked at him and some of that mirth that seemed to have been second nature to him, returned to his eyes, as he regarded him with genuine astonishment. Then he laughed. Loud and heartily. He looked at James as if to convey that somehow the joke was on him, then turned back to Thomas smiling broadly. "Well, congratulations on that position, I'm sure it's not the easiest, and that's saying something given that I'm usually the one receiving sympathy for the impossibilities I have to face." There went a very direct look in James' direction.

*

Flint stopped one of Vane's crew, after he'd delivered Thomas back, who he still remembered from their involuntary shared time on the Spanish Man o' War, one of those who weren't part of the rag-tag band Vane had spirited out of nowhere but was one of those who'd joined up with the crew at the beach of Nassau after that whole business with the fort.

"What the fuck happened here?"

"He managed something neither the Guthrie woman nor Jack Rackham ever did, nor anyone else for that matter. He can control Vane. It's like Vane's suddenly got a piece of common sense."

*

Flint was about to leave when he turned around once more and made straight for Vane's cabin.

Flint slammed the door shut upon entering, addressing Vane angrily. "What is it with him?! What is this thing?!"

"I listen to him," Vane smirked. "He's a lot more sensible than I am and I've learned it's in my best interest to do as he tells me." He took his feet off the table and got up. "Now why don't you tell me what the fuck business it is of yours? You don't want to? Well, I can guess." He laughed.

*

"You and Flint, huh?" Charles asked when Thomas returned to the ship.

"Life is full of ironies, isn't it?" Thomas joked weakly, still shaken by what had just happened. James only moments ago suddenly close enough again to touch. Thomas tried to recapitulate why exactly he hadn't gone with him. At the same time the second most prominent thought crashed again into him. Miranda dead. Removed forever. He couldn't quite yet figure out what had happened here, the knowledge of years impressing itself onto him in one moment. Maybe it had been fear that had kept him here. Because this James was suddenly too real again, after having had nothing but memory and imagination all those years. Because reality hadn't been half as kind as wishful thinking had painted it. Because he wasn't quite ready to deal with this reality.

"Thomas."

He was ripped from his revery.

"Charles."

*

"What now?" John waited for him in his cabin, arms crossed, leaning against his desk.

"What now?" Flint replied irritatedly.

"He's back."

"I noticed, thank you."

"Don't play daft."

"What do you want to hear, John, since you have all the answers?"

"What does that change?"

"Nothing changes." Flint said, bristling even more. "Now, can we drop that subject."

"Why? Because he's part of Vane's crew? Because your ego's hurt?"

"Shut up, Silver. I won't leave you now."

"Now?" There was a harsh laugh. "Don't you fucking patronize me! I don't need you to stay with me because I'm an invalid."

"That point is mute, you were already an invalid, when this whole thing started." Not that it hadn't started long before either of them had made the first move. Long before Flint had bloodied his fists yet again on Vane's face before throwing him off his ship. Long before Silver fell the first time on his newly acquired crutches.

*

They didn't talk about it, after that. Like somehow that could postpone the inevitable. Like maybe Silver was too scared to hear the answer. Like Flint could make the decision go away by just refusing to think about it, by ignoring it. Like that would make it any less unbearble and precarious for Silver. Like it wasn't what they were both thinking about all day. And Silver let Flint feel it. As much as there was hell in Silver's mind he made it hell for Flint in their daily routine. Every decision questioned, every agreement a battle, every word a searing cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! ^.^


	8. Lovers and other strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was quick. I actually had to split the chapter, but nevermind. Let's hope I get the rest out as quickly. It's insane how you can write like 95% of a story in a few weeks and then agonize over the remaining 5% for months. It sounds like a cliche, but it's, like, an universal truth.
> 
> OH, and BIG thank you to all the people reading and commenting!!! I thought this story would basically be a thing between me and andrea_deer. I never thought there'd actually be this many people who would give this a chance. ♡✧。 (⋈◍＞◡＜◍)。✧♡

Thomas was still there. Yet. Because Thomas was conscientious and dutiful. But still that meant nothing in the long run. Charles had seen how they'd eyed each other. Him and Thomas hadn't as much as kissed since their encounter with Flint.

Charles wasn't half as nonchalant as he gave himself. He wasn't the guy people chose. He was the guy people didn't bother with. And no way would any bond forged between them be stronger than the fucking star-crossed lovers. Looked like once again Flint was going to take what was his. Not that Charles would go down without a fight. Not that he ever had.

*

"Don't leave, Thomas." Charles gritted his teeth. And Thomas was reminded of one of their first conversations when the same had been uttered in warning. "Please don't leave. I can't do this without you."

"I'm going to stay with you as long as you need me."

"That could be longer than you bargained for," Charles said in a dry sort of gallows humor.

Charles looked so sad and dejected, so lost. Thomas leaned forward and kissed him. Just a short press of lips on lips.

"I'm sorry, Charles." He pulled away. "I... I can't."

"I know."

*

Flint barged into their shared cabin, slamming the door.

"What is your problem, John?"

John was on the bed. He didn't reach for his boot, though, but took his crutches, a sight he didn't show around anyone but Flint. A weakness, a vulnerability. That he'd show that amount of weakness in a situation like this. Flint didn't know what it meant.

"Don't act like you're not thinking about it." Silver said bitterly. "I know you do. I can see it."

"Going back to him?"

"Yes, dammit! Go back to him!" Silver yelled. "I didn't die after they cut my fucking leg off, I won't die from rejection."

"Maybe I don't want to." It had just come out like that. Not something Flint had planned. Not that he'd had planned anything exactly. He didn't know what to do about Silver. It couldn't quite be love, because love was something that was reserved for Thomas, but it was not not-love either.

"Maybe?!"

"I don't know. Okay? Could you give me some fucking time to figure this out?!"

"Okay." Silver smiled. Then he threw a punch at Flint. And it came so abruptly that Flint automatically blocked and hit back, out of habit. Silver fell, balance on the crutches too precarious still, one of them already dropped carelessly by Silver so he'd have a free hand to hit Flint. Silver fell, sprawled on the ground, humiliation mixing with the already bared vulnerability, face frozen in pain and anger. Flint didn't dare to apologize. The two of them trapped in this Mexican standoff were neither could see a way to get out of this without losses.  
Flint waited, endured the crawling moments of Silver on the floor trying to get back to his feet. Knew he mustn't dare to offer assistance. Listened to the hisses of pain, beheld the mortification on Silver's face, as his punishment, both gritting their teeth almost in sync. When he was finally firmly on his feet again Flint fled the room.

*

The Walrus crew could tell things were not right between their captain and their quartermaster. And while that in itself was not unusual, this time it seemed to affect their quartermaster's equilibrium. And that was something they were not used to. And it had all started with joining forces with Charles Vane again.

*

The smoke around the city settled. Silver sat down on a piece of wall that stood out of the ground, stretching out his leg. Flint sheathed his sword and looked around, taking in the state of his remaining men.

Through the thick smoke coming from a still burning building nearby came Vane and Thomas. Vane was just leaning to the side offering the burning cigarette hanging from his lips for Thomas to light his on.

*

"What's all this talk of pardons?" Thomas asked, confused.

"The governor is offering a full pardon to everyone who abstains from piracy." Jack explained, preoccupied.

"Someone is offering pardons to all the pirates?" Thomas asked in disbelief. "Why on earth are we not taking them?!"

Charles laughed. "Come on, is that a real question?"

Silver only sat there, smiling.

Thomas eyes darted to Flint. "James!"

An uncomfortable look flitted across Flint's face for a moment before it settled back on his usual tenacious expression. "Thomas, things aren't as easy anylonger as they once were."

"Tell me about it!" Thomas replied uncharacteristically snarkish. "But what could have possibly changed about that?! This is what we wanted! What we fought for! Didn't you say this was what you fought for here, after my presumed death? A future for Nassau?"

Flint shook his head resolutely. "This is not a future for Nassau. There will be no future for Nassau under England."

"James, you are–"

"Give us a moment, please." Flint's voice regally cut through the room.

Jack was the first to gather his papers and make for the exit. The next was Charles, with a wry headshake. Lastly Silver got to his feet, holding both of them in a closely scrutinizing and without a doubt judging gaze that nevertheless betrayed none of his thoughts, until he was past them and out the door too.

"James."

"England killed Miranda." Flint iterated, pain and anger in his voice, like he couldn't understand how the other couldn't see that this sentence alone explained all, every decision of the past and every single one still to come.

"You keep saying it like England is a person. It isn't. Some individuals did this to me. An individual killed Miranda."

"You weren't there."

"Yes, I wasn't." There was bitterness in Thomas voice too now. "Are you really going to throw away our only chance at peace?"

"I won't accept the pardons. Your friend Vane won't accept the pardons. Rackham won't either. Teach would certainly never accept a pardon. This war is the right way. It's the only way."

*

"Can, we just..." Silver took up his hands. He turned to Thomas. "Could you give us a moment?"

"Take your time."

"Flint," there was slightly threatening edge in his voice as Silver turned to his captain.

Flint gave a hissed growl, but got out of Charles' face and came walking over to Silver.

"Do we need to step outside?" Silver asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No." Flint grumbled.

Meanwhile Charles smirked and turned to Thomas.

"No," Thomas apprehended. "Don't say a word. You've not exactly impressed me either."

Charles smirked even broader. "I was perfectly pleasant."

"I'm seeing right through you, Mister."

Silver turned back to them, smiling a little strained. "We can continue."

As it turned out they could indeed continue, continue to fight and insult each other. Silver was the first to get up and walk right through the two of them. Charles seemed to take that as an invitation that the meeting was over, lighting himself a cigarette and making straight for the door.

Flint himself was taken a little of guard by this quick end to what still posed as a discussion, when he'd still had so many good points to yell into Vane's face.

The moment Charles had left the cabin and the door had been closed, Thomas moved over to Flint.

"Oh God, James." he reprimanded fondly, leaning down to kiss the other man. 

He moved so familiarly, so confidently. It had been a long time since someone had exerted a so casual claim over Flint. A long time since someone had handled him like this. Flint might be the one leading this army, but between the two of them Thomas was in control. Not because he exacted it, but because Flint was willing to do almost anything for him. Except accept the pardons.

*

His heart was burning in his chest. Seeing James again. Having him at a hand's reach. It was like his whole world had come tumbling down within that one moment, in a good way. But still. So much had changed. They looked at each other and it was still the same face, even though harder and aged, still the same man and yet so different. Nothing brought the same reaction. Except their reaction to each other. There they could still tread savely. Looking at the other, touching him. Despite a certain uneasiness, self-consciousness, where none had been before. When they kissed, things were simple and good. But once they actually tried to talk, once they separated and dealt with the world as it was still moving around them, things weren't as clean-cut anylonger. James seemed to view nothing anylonger the way he once did. Thomas felt like he had been the one to change less in all those years. Too often either would say something that would catch the other the wrong way. Without intent, that's what made it worse, from simple unfamiliarity. They didn't know each other anylonger. And when they would have liked to take the time to learn the ways of the other anew, they both were caught up in their own worlds, both having duties that claimed most of their time. And what did it say about them that they would choose to adhere to those instead of being with each other? Was it from fear? From fear that they would find something in the other they wouldn't like? From fear the other would see something in them that would repel him? Or was it simply that in times like this their own needs didn't count as much as those of the many?  
And then there was Charles for whom he'd started to feel so, so many things in such a short time. Who was hurting beside him every single day. And how insane was it to think of Charles when finally James was back at his side?  
The funny thing was, though, when in James the callousness unsettled him, in Charles he had never seemed to mind it.  
What right did he have to question the way James had changed, the way he had adapted to life as it had turned out? Had he expected for them to hug and kiss and then things would be as they had been? That the barrier of ten years wouldn't fade back into view once the initial euphoria had passed?  
How they would meet again at such different allegiances. They were so callous in their expectations. Demanding loyality of the other but not willing to give any of their own.  
And every conversation that left them at odds seemed to confirm some inner assumption of James that he wouldn't be able to understand him and would despise him for what he'd become, when there was nothing about James that Thomas couldn't understand and when he blamed only himself for what James had turned into. Because at the bottom line it had been Thomas' fault. James' life, Miranda's death, his own imprisonment. Had been his hubris, his folly, his own fault. And no one but him should have had to pay the price for it. And still they all had payed it and James still continued to do so.  
Now, looking at James, his old question came to mind again. Yes, ten years could redefine a man. Ten years could annihilate everything that man had ever been. The question was, were ten years also enough for the man to forget who he had been?

*

There he was, standing between the rugged, wild men of Vane, like a beacon. Talking in his modulated, resonating voice, having the rapt attention of the men around him.

It was hard for Flint to watch. Not because he didn't think Thomas capable of it. Not because he didn't think Thomas deserved it. Nevertheless it made him feel more palpable how he'd failed him. Thomas had found his freedom and he'd found his place. And Flint hadn't been the one to give him either of it.

*

Silver watched them interact. He saw the deep trust and familiarity between those two. Flint must be seeing it too.

Charles was lying in a hammock, peeling an apple with a far too large knife. Thomas was sitting beside him feet propped up on some keg.

Maybe it was wrong to feel spiteful. Hell, James deserved happiness, Silver who more than most had seen the deep crevices guilt had left in his soul, knew that very well. But he wasn't above stepping low, especially on days like this, when he could barely walk without pain contorting his face. Maybe it wasn't spite so much as foolish hope. That maybe, maybe Thomas could see in him and James, what Silver was seeing in him and Vane. That what was between him and James was as hard to wipe away as what was right in front of him right now. Was it wrong not wanting to let go? Silver wouldn't have asked that question before. In another lifetime when he was the only one who counted. And now there was this man, whose happiness Silver wanted enough that he was willing to hurt, maybe not in silence, but anyway.

*

Flint slammed the door. Thomas followed after him.

"He is obnoxious, insufferable, completely unpredictable..." Flint ranted on.

"Have you listened to a word he said?" Thomas asked.

"Don't you protect him. You don't know that man." Flint shook his head as if to shake off the sheer notion. "Because of his crew John lost his leg!"

"That wasn't on him and you know it. You don't know him, James. This man has met me with kindness and acceptance."

Flint laughed harshly. "Thomas, don't you mistake indifference for acceptance."

"I know how you feel about him, especially because of what happened to John, but–"

"This has nothing to do with John! This man was already the lowest of the low before I ever knew John!" Yet, every gesture and twist of his face said that this was very much about John Silver.

"I can accept your point on that matter. But I have to ask you to accept my opinion too."

Flint's jaw worked, but he didn't say more.

Thomas continued, "His words weren't beside the point, if I'd brought them up you would have agreed with me. He is neither bad nor stupid, the two of you just don't get along, that is all."

"Yes, you can say that, from out off the little cloud-castle you built in your mind. I've seen this man act stupid and unreasonable on more occassions than I can count. He acts on impulse. Always. And fuck all plans."

"I should hope that you trust my judgement is not impaired."

"Honestly, Thomas, I can't tell right now. You wouldn't be the first reasonable person to start acting unreasonable because of him."

"You mean like you do right now?"

Something like a growl escaped Flint's mouth. He took a deep breath. "I'm not going to fight with you, Thomas. Not because of Fucking Charles Vane."

They were neither as patient and respectful with each other as they would have been once upon a time. Not that their dicussions hadn't occassionaly turned into arguments back then. And the matter of Charles Vane was a sensitive topic for both of them. So was his reason being questioned for Thomas. Thomas thought it would have probably born more fruit to have had this conversation with John Silver. He seemed to have a tighter leash on his emotions and on James for that matter.

*

He's done stalling. This wasn't making it better for anyone. This was a commitment he has to make for himself as much as everyone else. He needed to decide what he wanted. And he knew what he wanted.

"I'm sorry, John."

"It's okay." A harsh, unmoved face. "I understand."

*

"Vane isn't here," Flint stated dangerously. "That means you follow my command."

"Yeah, I don't think so. As long as the Captain hasn't agreed with that plan we're doing nothing." The man regarded Flint with a set face, surrounded by men with equally closed-off, arms-crossed postures.

"Yes, Mr Houston, you will." Thomas said with the definite patience of a governess sending a child to bed.

Houston turned around to the other members of the crew. "Guys, get it moving."

*

"Jack, I think I'm in love again."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Chuck! Eleanor left you at the mercy of your crew and you killed her father!"

"It's not Eleanor."

"What do you mean it's not Eleanor? Of course it's Eleanor!"

"It's not Eleanor."

Jack just looked dumbfounded for a moment, then he slapped his palm against his forehead, like he should have seen it. "Really, Chuck? The quartermaster?! Flint's ex?! That's still going on? Are you kidding me?! I swear, if this alliance fails because you can't keep your dick in your pants–"

"It's not going on," Charles replied glumly.

Jack looked relieved at first, but then groaned. "But you want it to."

Charles shrugged. "Any advice?"

"Stop. Stop it, Charles. Right there. That's my advice."

Charles shook his head unperturbed. "No."

Jack threw up his hands. "For fuck's sake! You want advice, here's my advice: Love triangles rarely work! Look at me, Anne and Max. Max and I actually like each other and still we could barely make this work. Well, at least I like Max. Keep your hands off Flint's man or this will end with blood, tears and us losing the war!"

Charles made a petulant face. "Nope."

Jack sucked in another deep breath, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples for a moment. "You know what, Charles. Go back to your ship, I'm tired of having you around."

"Come now," Charles got up, giving Jack a hug. "You missed me."

Jack smiled a little.

As Charles indeed turned to leave, Jack suddenly had an epiphany. "You go for the blond educated types, don't you, Chuck?" Then another thought struck him. "But, really, you fucking Flint's ex, that's like... Flint would fuck Eleanor Guthr– Oh my God."

*

"If Chuck and Flint actually go for the same type, do you know what that means?" Jack asked.

"Means you think too fucking much." Anne replied.

"No, it means Silver should probably watch out."

"Shit, I can't believe I'm listening to this."

*

"Do you know what I think of you, you stinking little cretin?!" Flint yelled at the crew member of Vane.

Then man mumbled something under his breath. Flint gave a jerk, eying the man dubiously.

"What did you just say?"

"Err, if you despise me, that's your problem. My, err, only concern is not doing something deserving of contempt." repeated the man self-consciously.

 

Flint leaned against the railing, looking heavenwards. "For fuck's sake, Miranda, he tought them Meditations."

*

"Thomas, I need those men." Flint said. "They'll follow you."

"They're Charles' crew." Thomas replied gravely. "He put his trust in me and I will decide in his best interest. Which isn't you using them as cannon fodder."

"What about my trust in you?!" Flint exclaimed outraged.

"I wouldn't think you would put me in a position that would make me break my word or lose my self-respect." Thomas replied calmly.

Flint looked hurt at that, slapped.

"You'd use these words against me?" Flint asked. "Is that where we are now?"

*

"Where the hell have you been?!" Thomas asked angrily, as Charles climbed aboard the Fancy again. He'd had enough trouble already. Like this war wasn't enough at their hands. The taking of Nassau through Woodes Rogers. He and James had constantly clashed during Charles' absence. Because Thomas had felt the need to protect the other man's interest without even knowing where the other had gone to and on what business. He had jeopardized the unsteady footing on which him and James had found themselves. To protect the crew as well. But often enough in the past days he'd take a stand against James on behalf of this man. Sometimes solely for the reason that it made him angry how James talked about him.

Charles met his angry gaze unapologetically and Thomas realised he wouldn't get an explanation. 

Then Charles spoke, "Look, I love you. I want you to fucking choose me. I don't care how selfish that sounds. I'm not willing to give up. I can't. You think you can be happy with him? Maybe you can. But we could be too. We were. We fucking were."

*

Thomas lay down in Charles' bed. The bed they'd shared for not such a long time, but still it felt like he could barely remember it differently. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling. He didn't even hear Charles enter, too caught up in his thoughts. Charles didn't say anything, didn't ask questions, didn't make assumptions, just lay down beside him, staring at the same ceiling.

"Can I stay a little while longer?" Thomas asked.

"Where else the fuck would you go?" Charles replied gruffly. Thomas felt his arms closing around him.

"With you I feel save. I haven't felt save in ten years." Thomas said quietly.

Together they lay like that, as innocent as children, nothing like they'd been before.

*

Charles' calm and all-engulfing strength and tenderness. The way he'd always be there as the solid piece of sanity, tethering Thomas to this world when he'd been in a precarious state of mind. Asking so little in return. Asking for nothing but loyalty and giving everything in return. The easiness and casualness with which Charles went about the world was infecting. It was surprisingly enough a very black and white world. Charles didn't waste time with questioning his decisions or agonizing over past mistakes. And that was a mindsake that both he and James lacked. Thomas liked to think he'd been like this as well, once upon a time. But not anylonger. These days every step was a constant worrying if he wasn't making another huge mistake. This whole war seemed like a constant black cloud hanging over his head. The knowledge that they were doing it all wrong and still they continued to go through the motions.

*

They were getting ready for the taking of another city. For provisons, also for weapons, but mostly in an attempt to make Rogers divert some of his fleet from Nassau to defend the adjacent harbors.

"You're staying here." Flint told him.

"Are you crazy?" Silver asked, as he thought very reasonably.

Flint didn't answer, which was probably for the better. But Silver couldn't believe what happened next, while it certainly answered his question.

"Give me my fucking boot back, you son of a bitch!" Silver yelled.

"Since when do you suddenly like to act the hero?" Flint asked derisively.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"You're not going to go out there. You're not going to get hurt. And you're not going to die. That's on your agenda for today."

"It's not for you to decide what I can and can't do."

"Funny, as your captain I thought that's the exact description of what I can do."

Flint slammed the door shut.

*

When they lay with each other that night, James took Thomas' face into his palms.

"I choose you," James said. "Always. Like there ever was a choice."

Thomas would have liked to believe that. Why did every touch, every kiss feel like goodbye then, like the scene was set for the last act of the play.  
Two friends. Two lovers. Reminiscing about a shared past.

And Thomas loved James so fucking much still. Every crease of his face, every pained line he wanted to take away and protect him. The gentle, innocent soul that still lived in the harsh, worn body. Brutalized, shaking, scar-covered, surviving. Somehow he felt James had suffered more in those ten years than he had. Had been warped more. Changed more. Battleworn, dark. Not unapologetic. Never unapologetic. James more than anyone else felt the weight of presumed or actual misdeads. No rest for him. No forgiveness. Harrowing himself to the bone. Not even Thomas would have held such harsh council with himself.

*

One storm and then their problems were of a much more existential matter than even before.

 

"Hey, you fucking talk to me!" Charles stepped out of line and was immediately hit over the head by a tall, tattooed black man with a club.

 

Charles woke up with his head in Thomas' lap, inside some sort of cage. Together with Flint and Silver.

"Well, I sure never planned to be in a cell again." Charles muttered, slowly sitting up, feeling a little woozy.

"Neither did I, I can assure you." Thomas replied, hands still steadying Charles, even though it was unnecessary.

"Even though, I guess in my case it was only a question of time."

*

They're trapped on an island, locked up in cages. They're all about to die and he and Flint weren't even really talking anylonger, hadn't been since they'd set sail from Blackbeard's island. The only words exchanged only as much as necessary for doing their jobs. And Silver could tell. He could fucking tell that James wanted to say something to him, could see it in every conflicted quirk of those fucking red eyebrows, the way that dent between them would get more pronounced. But he wouldn't make it that easy for him, no sir. He was done listening to Flint's excuses so the other could feel better.

But now that had to wait, because Silver was not ready to die on this island.

*

Flint was making plans. Silver was making plans. They all were. But so far those were fancies at best, madness at worst. To Silver it was clear that no matter how Vane and Billy probably would have liked to fight their way out of here, their only chance to get out of here would be by the grace of the Maroon Queen herself. Now his task was to find a reason their survival could be of interest to her.

*

"I'm sorry, Thomas." Flint said one morning. "I'm sorry, that I got you into this. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you. I promise you, I won't let you die here. I will make up for what I let happen to you."

Thomas only let out a sigh, leaning his head against the wooden bars of their cage. "I don't need to be saved, James. Not any more than any of us. I'm an adult. I know what I'm doing. I made my choices and now I live with them. You're not to blame for what happened to me. And maybe, maybe I have to start believing that you made your decisions as well and I'm not to blame for what happened to you either. I know Miranda would be angry as fuck if either of us dared to imply that she wasn't in full control of all her decisions."

They both smiled at each other. In the middle of nowhere, waiting inside a cage to die, probably by torture, they smiled at each other. And for a moment Flint thought that, maybe, maybe the time for comforting lies hadn't passed yet after all.

*

The man they had all come to know by now arrived again to collect one of theirs.

"I wanna talk to your queen!" Charles called.

Everyone was suprised. Everyone, except maybe Thomas Hamilton. Silver saw no such thing as surprise on his face.

"I think she's spent enough time torturing our men. Anything she might want to know she can ask me. Tell her that."

The man left.

He came back again. He didn't take Vane though. He took all four of them.

The queen was waiting in her hut for them, seated on the throne of hers, regarding them with the ever merciless disdain of hers. They were all thrown in front of her on their knees.

"You don't want me to talk to your men anylonger." she started. "You want me to talk to you instead. I would like to think it is care for your men, I fear it is only arrogance though."

"Ask me what a slave fears most." Charles Vane's voice interrupted her monologue in the same lazy drawl that they'd all heard so much during their travel together. He was still on his knees, casually leaning back on his heals, facing her with a steady gaze.

Her eyes narrowed, momentarily irritated by the interruption, but soon she only laughed harshly at his words. She stood up, walking over to him, regarding him with all the height of her status and personality. "You won't be able to answer that." She crouched down in front of him, in one graceful, fluid movement, that seemed to impair none of the grandness of her whole bearing. "You think because you've been a merciful owner you know us? You think maybe because you've known former slaves among your crew it will spare you? You don't know us. But I'll give you a chance, I'll make it easier for you. Answer me now: Is it pain, loss or hunger?"

"Neither. It's the unknown. The lash that comes from nowhere for reasons never explained. A visit from the taskmaster in the dead of the night. That's what we fear."

The queen looked at him differently now.

*

And like that they were free again. The axe that seemed to have been hanging over their necks for days now suddenly removed. At the hands of no one less than Charles Vane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck, I just hope I haven't overlooked any typos or existential logical mistakes in the story. Even when I've reread a chapter locally for a dozen times, I still have this notion, like, yeah, probably when I actually upload it suddenly the content will change and mysteriously mistakes will appear. xD


	9. Something's got a hold on me

The Maroon Queen walked in. Flint immediately got up, but she dismissed him. "I wish to speak to Captain Vane."

The Maroon Queen watched the pirate captain stroll in. As before not in the least intimidated but at the same time deferential. He was an interesting man. A brother to them despite his skin, despite her and her husband agreeing that you could never trust them, that they would never be your friends, your kin. Still this man knew them, was like them. She could see it in his eyes. In his posture. The held high shoulders of the one who bore the whip before and would never again be brought to his knees by it. Who'd never again lower his eyes to anyone. She knew it so well. Saw it each time she looked into the mirror. Also, nearly invisible to anyone who didn't share it, the deep-rooted fear that could never be washed out again as infection could be washed out of the cuts from the lashes.  
Yes, she understood him. But there were things she didn't understand. As he walked in, with him was again his quartermaster. The british man with the bearings of a lord. Much more so than Mr Guthrie had ever been. The man who'd seemed like a gutter grunt, like a pirate himself, no matter how much he'd tried to act like a lord. But this man was different. And she did not understand what he was doing in the confidence of a man like Captain Vane. Captain Flint, maybe. But Captain Vane?

 

And then Charles came up with the letters he and Thomas had found on the Spanish ship, and the Maroon Queen listened to him. And they all saw how the dynamics here had shifted.

*

Madi looked at Thomas. "You're the epitome of the priviledged white man who's suppressed my people for centuries."

"I am." Thomas agreed mildly. "I was. And now I am a pirate."

"Captain Vane thinks highly of you, so do his men."

Thomas smiled. "But you can't trust me. Or maybe you don't understand me and don't like me. But that is alright. I hope you'll find time to build an opinion of me. I shall do the same."

*

Charles watched as Thomas came back from a swim. Breaches soaked and clinging to his body. Beautiful, lean Thomas, still with that endearing sense of modesty, while everyone else was swimming naked, when Charles knew Thomas to be far from shy.

Charles watched him banter with the crew, bringing smiles to every face with just a few words.

He didn't seem to care for the misgivings of the maroon people, just met them on eyelevel with unwavering assuredness and calm.

And Thomas still acted around him with such assuredness, as well. So many touches. A brush through his hair. A warm hand on his arm. Maybe Thomas didn't even realise it. Maybe it meant it was truly over. But Charles was never one to let go of relationships easily. Come to think he'd only been able to let go of Eleanor, to truly let go, after he'd met Thomas. Because, let's face it, killing her father hadn't been the end of it. Not from his side.

Then he saw two other people were watching Thomas. The princess and Silver. Both standing at different points, regarding Thomas with very different emotions. So the three of them stood there all of them silently watching him.

*

Thomas looked at Charles, watched him move among the Maroon People with inert ease, smile and joke with some men who'd wanted him dead not so long ago. That was one of the gifts of Charles Vane. He had no reservations. People liked him, looked up to him. He didn't believe himself above anyone, for anything but the things he was capable of. Thomas watched the genuine respect the Maroon Queen had for Charles, and he felt proud. He felt proud to be able to call this man his friend. 

And now, looking at Charles, he of course felt a whole lot of other things. Charles chose that moment to look into Thomas' direction and smiled. Thomas returned it, feeling a jumble of feelings that went both deep into his chest and his groin. He'd lost ten years and he really didn't understand why he should waste just a second more to deny himself something he wanted. But at the same time he knew that it would hurt James. Charles Vane of all people. And hurting James was the last thing he wanted to do.

*

Charles stopped him on his way back to camp.

"Hey," he tapped Flint on the arm. "Talk to your quartermaster. He looks a little worse for wear."

"What business is that of yours?" Flint asked, immediately on the defensive.

"I've got eyes." Charles replied, and walked on.

 

And he should have seen it, shouldn't he? Except he tried to look at Silver as little as possible these days. Because it's just easier not to. Because he missed him. Because things were beyond salvaging between them.

"Why didn't you say your leg got worse?!" Flint asked angrily.

"I would have let you know if I thought it of relevance." Silver replied coldly polite. "As it is I have matters very well in hand."

Flint reached out a hand. "You have a fever."

Silver pulled his head away, face flushed and clammy. "Oh you don't say."

"Let me see your leg." Flint pulled the blanket away that was covering his leg. The wound was angry and red. 

Silver whimpered as he touched the swollen flesh surrounding the inflamed area. "Get away."

"Darling," Flint whispered helplessly, not even meaning to.

A harsh, breathless laugh tore from Silver's mouth. "You fucking bastard!"

*

Beautiful, beautiful, infuriating Silver, who always kept Flint on his toes. Not the good-natured pitting of wits it had been with Thomas who had always just resonated with James (not anylonger, though, if he was being honest, but he wasn't). No, a butting of heads between two people who clearly didn't fit but still balanced each other perfectly. And honestly Flint felt bereft without Silver by his side. Without the banter, the glinting playful eyes. He still got the razor sharp wit and the razor sharp barbs but Silver was closed off to him. And he was feeling it like the loss of a limb, like he could only reach his full potential with Silver by his side. And now, now he felt worried about him too.

*

Flint got called by Thomas. "One of our men attacked one of the Maroon people."

Flint gave an angry sigh. "One of Vane's men?" It wasn't really a question.

"No. One of your crew. Mr. Dobbs. Unlike yours, my men do what I tell them." Thomas replied, angry at the assumption, angry once more on Charles' behalf.

*

One morning they're on their way back to Nassau and the next day the wind was gone. Completely gone. Thomas would have liked to appreciate the aesthetics of the pristine, unbroken surface of the ocean, but he was only far too aware of the palpable danger this posed.

"You're thinking the ocean looks pretty like this, don't you?" Charles spoke up beside him suddenly, looking out at the ocean with a smirk.

"What makes you say that?" Thomas asked somewhere between peevish and embarrassed.

"What, it is beautiful, isn't it?" Charles laughed. "And give it some time and maybe it's going to kill all of us." He turned his face up into the sun, blinking against the light with a smile.

*

Silver and Flint were coming to figurative blows more and more often with every passing day they were stuck on this ship. And the one who'd intervene between them and try to appeal to reason would of course be no other than Thomas Hamilton.

Great, amazing Lord Thomas Hamilton. Above reproach and too good for this world. At least Flint and Vane seemed to think so. Who'd been able to achieve everything Silver had worked so hard for, without any effort. And really, they shared so many traits that Silver had to wonder if he'd been nothing but a replacement. Looked like he had something in common with Vane now. But it wasn't like him to think like that. Maybe it was the fever talking. Nevertheless his thoughts were clued to this particular topic. He only had to look down on himself. On one hand the epic, risen-from-the-dead Thomas Hamilton, on the other one-legged John Silver. Maybe once upon a time he could have at least prided himself with his looks but now he was a cripple who looked like something the cat had dragged in. The rational part of his brain told him that this hadn't been a problem for Flint before, but now he had the choice.

*

How ironic. To die here. Without any sense to it. Without valor or meaning, or anything for that matter. So many regrettable and stupid decisions that led to this. Not accepting the pardons for one thing. And many things that had seemed of tatamount importance only a few days ago seemed meaningless now. After ten years gone to nothing, Thomas would be damned if he would regret anything in the last few days that were left to him.

*

Thomas came walking into his cabin. Walked over to him, unhurried, sure of his welcome, as always, running a leisurely hand through Charles' hair. "I love you."

"No, you love Flint." Charles replied almost immediately.

"Those two aren't mutually exclusive." Thomas leaned in and kissed Charles. Yes, Charles hadn't been just a distraction. No matter that he'd told him it would be over as soon as he'd found James. No, Charles Vane was now irrevocably written onto his life, just as James McGraw.

"What are you doing?" Charles asked, dazed, not moving away, body slightly swaying against Thomas.

"I'm tired of denying myself. Not here, not right now." Thomas said kissing him again. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being selfish. You can tell me to stop."

Charles only lifted Thomas onto his desk.

Every single one of Thomas' touches, always confident. To the point, unhurried. Like now, when his hand was snaking into Charles' hair pulling him down to him while the other possessively grabbed a piece of Charles' ass. Despite them not having been together for weeks now, there was no frantic hurry in Thomas' movements, just calm, thorough claiming of every piece of Charles' body.

"God, you're so beautiful." Thomas said with a light chuckle that had so nothing to do with their current predicament, rubbing his nose against Charles' cheek.

They seemed to be the only two people on this ship untouched by the ever increasing panic and desperation. Charles didn't want to die, neither did Thomas. But they were the only two who seemed to be able to accept that it might be a possible outcome, and not to break at the prospect of it.

*

They'd been without food and nearly no water for ten days now.

"You know," Silver started. "Maybe you're not fit to lead anylonger."

Flint only replied gravely. "If you feel that way."

"I'm sure if I called a vote the men would pick any candidate of my choosing," Silver continued in a nonchalant voice. "Hell, even myself. Billy would make a fine quartermaster, don't you think?"

"I'm sure you could."

"I don't know what's worse, the way you lost it after Miranda's death or your fucking pity and complacentness now." Silver said in disgust. "No wish to threaten me at all? Or is it just that you have no more interest in your captaincy now that Thomas's returned? Because, believe me, you wouldn't do good to underestimate me. I am capable of everything I said."

"I never underestimated you in my life. And if you were to take my captaincy you'd be the one person I'd be unable to stop for a multitude of reasons, for I couldn't stop you in one way and wouldn't in another."

*

"You can't starve part of the crew." Silver said walking into Flint's cabin under great labor in his weakened state.

"I'm simply making the decisions you are unable to."

"Then I won't eat either. I'm not in any form helpful to maintaining the ships functions, as you well know."

Flint was up in his face immediately. "You will eat, you little fuck! And if I have to stuff the bread down your throat myself!"

They angrily maintained eye-contact for a moment, before both reached out to claw and clutch for the other. The kiss overflowing with desperation that had been burning away in them for weeks.

They broke away, breathing hard. Flint's hands still in Silver's his hair, on his face. An unceasing, unaware caress. An uncontrollable, desperate need to maintain the contact.

"I love you, you fucking bastard," Silver said bitterly.

Those words alone seemed to burn Flint, as suddenly he retracted his hands, looking ill at ease.

"Get the fuck out of here." Silver only said.

And without another word Flint left his own cabin.

*

"Don't be dumb," Charles said, thrusting the bread back at Silver. "You stop eating, you think your body will be able to fight the infection anylonger?"

"Why do you care?" Silver asked laconically, not really caring all that much. These days all he really thought about was sleeping and of course food.

Charles paused. "I respect you," he then said. "A lot more than I do Flint. You have balls. You showed that back then on the Spanish Man O' War. Not many guys get the drop on me. I thought you were a pathetic coward, when I first met you. A little rat scraping by. I had to remedy my opinion. You're a true pirate. And I don't want you to die carelessly. You should die in battle, as you deserve. As I hope I will."

"Thank you, I guess." Silver smiled lop-sidedly. "I thought you were crazy when I first– well met is maybe the wrong word. Knowing Eleanor Guthrie and Flint, I'm now thinking you're more on the sane side."

"Yeah?" Charles smiled toothily.

"Do you think Thomas and me are alike?" Silver suddenly asked, and that was definitely his brain shutting down on him.

Charles looked confused, then laughed. "No. In what way? Because you can talk? I don't know you very well, but I know Thomas. And from what I know, I can tell you two couldn't be any more different."

"Aren't you angry?"

"Don't wallow in self-pity. That's pathetic. I don't either. Thomas is a grown man, he makes his own decisions. So is Flint. Those two share history, doesn't mean we can't change the outcome."

Now Silver laughed. "You have no chance. Neither of us has."

"Think what you want. But eat." Vane thrust the crust of bread into Silver's hand again.

"You don't seem hungry."

Vane shrugged. "I am. Got a lot more muscle to burn though. I guess, I'm just used to it. Going without food for a bit."

"I am too." Silver said quietly. 

"Yes, I thought so."

"Not for a while though."

Vane nodded. "You take what you can get. Look after yourself. I imagine that's how you made it this far."

Silver took the bread.

*

Madi came to change his bandage again. She sat at his bedside in calm silence, her head and shoulders still held as high as on the first day, like she wasn't as hungry and exhausted as the rest of them.

"You love him, don't you?" she suddenly asked.

Silver felt tears sting his eyes, for whatever reason. He wouldn't start crying in front of the Maroon princess. "Yes." he replied, his voice husky.

"I can tell, from the way you look at him. From the way you look at each other." she went on. "He loves you too. What happened?"

"He doesn't love me." Silver replied. "He loves Thomas Hamilton."

"I don't know about that. But he does love you."

*

"Come on, Flint," Charles winked. "Out of the crew we're the two most physically able for this job. So, let's go, let's have some fun."

They rowed out to the whale carcess together.

"Are we going to talk about this?"

"I hope not," Flint replied very matter-of-factly.

"Maybe we should."

"Since when do you talk?" Flint asked exasperated.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Flint. Besides I spent a lot of time around Thomas. I don't have to tell you that talking just naturally happens then."

"What could there possibly be to talk about between the two of us?"

"Oh, I don't know, I thought maybe we could try not to be at each other's throats every five seconds. But now that you're being a complete ass I'm going to tell you something else." Charles gave Flint a hard stare. "I'm going to get Thomas back. You laugh now, but I am. You have no fucking idea what I'm willing to do for that man. And I don't mean killing you, because that would be pretty futile. I can get him back and I will. He loves me. And he will realise that you are just the fucking past."

"What are you talking about?" Flint asked.

"What do you mean?" Charles looked at the other dumbfounded. Then understanding dawned on him."But you surely must have known, Thomas must have told you..."

"You?... And Thomas?"

 

From the ship Silver and Thomas watched as Flint and Charles rolled around the boat, throwing punches, nearly rolling off at times, seriously considering whether they should take another boat and row out there. They both flinched when Charles finally went overboard. He climbed back in soon enough though, Flint actually lending a hand, looking like a disgruntled wet dog. They returned to the ship later, actually having hunted a shark, even though, neither Thomas nor Silver were quite sure how exactly that had come to pass.

"The next time we have to go out there." Thomas said.

"I know." Silver agreed.

 

After the meat was divided and everyone had eaten, Flint dragged Thomas back into his cabin.

"You didn't think to tell me?!" Flint asked angrily.

"About what?"

Flint was brimming with anger, nostrils flaring. "About Vane."

Thomas just looked at him for a moment, as if waiting for something more, for some elaboration. The he just stared at him bewildered. "But... but I thought you knew." A pause, even more confused. "You were so angry."

"Yes! Because you were part of his crew!" Flint exclaimed like it was obvious.

"Just because of that?" Thomas looked even more bewildered, brows drawn. "That's... that's ridiculous. I thought you were jealous..." He just looked helpless now.

"I can't believe this."

"This is probably not helpful now, but you should probably also know that I slept with him, a few nights ago. You know I love you, but–"

"Oh, this is getting better and better! Has this been going on all the time?!"

"No, James." Thomas took a step towards him, as always unafraid of him. "But now that we could be dead within a few days, it seemed like such a waste, to continue denying what we feel. Like we've both been doing these past weeks."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

James refused to understand and Thomas had done enough already. So he dropped it.

 

Flint barged into Silver's cabin as he was getting ready to sleep.

"Can you believe it?!" Flint flung out.

"I'm sure I can." Silver sat up again.

"Thomas and Vane!" Flint continued still unwaveringly indignated and shocked. "Together! And they kept it a secret!"

Now Silver started laughing. "A secret, was it?"

"What do you mean? You knew?!"

"Now come, James." Silver said. "You can't be that stupid. It was fucking obvious. Vane's entire crew knew. How the hell could you possible miss that?"

 

The next morning the wind returned.

*

Nothing changed. Flint and Thomas stayed together. What else had Silver really expected?

*

Charles shouldn't feel betrayed but he did. Much more he felt hurt though, when he knew what this was from the beginning. Thomas never gave him any cause to believe that things with him and Flint were resolved. Charles chose to take when Thomas was willing to give, knowing that beside Flint he'd always be only second best. Thomas who is cruel in such he only ever told you the truth and let you make your own mistakes. Spoke the merciless truth to your face, because he knew you're unable to say no anyway. Or even worse would fully accept you to say no but put it out there anyway. That's the problem. He made you do nothing. You came after him all of the way. And Charles still did. That's what Thomas did to people. Probably had done to Flint too.

*

He's feeling less like he's made of paper again, since they get to eat regularly once more. But otherwise none of the problems that came to surface, after festering for so long, in the doldrums had been resolved. For Silver at least. He's feeling ill-footed in more than one way. The things he'd said to Flint, the things he'd said to Charles Vane. And Silver felt resentment towards Thomas Hamilton too, when the man was certainly an innocent party in all of this. When at the bottom of it all none of them was to blame for bad circumstances.

Silver looked up as a shadow fell on him.

"John." he was greeted.

"Charles."

With Charles Vane though... A certain truce had established itself since the doldrums. More often the two of them found themselves in conversation with each other. Even seeking the other out. Silver hadn't thought that after what had happened on the Spanish Man O' War that would have been possible at all. But then, it never had been Vane's fault.

*

While they were gone though, the news of Captain Vane's and Captain Flint's deaths had spread throughout Nassau. Rackham and Teach had managed to fuck up the attack on Nassau and now half their army had deserted and taken Woodes Rogers' pardons. While Rackham, Anne and Teach where holing up on Teach's island.

*

"I'm going with him."

"No," Thomas said. "You're staying here for the same reason James is."

"But I'm not Flint. I'm not some fucking bogeyman. People get scared when they see me, not when I stay away."

"Mr. Silver knows what he's doing, believe me on this."

"I know he is." Charles sighed.

*

Silver was getting ready to leave the ship. The rowboats were already made ready to take them into Nassau to garner support among the men there, to infuse once more the fear of Captain Flint among those who'd betrayed them.

He threw a glance at Thomas who was still standing there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching the progress made around him.

"You don't want to come?" Silver challenged.

"I don't think it's really my territory." Thomas replied with a smile.

Silver smiled even broader than Thomas. "Oh, by all means, you should. I hear you're quite the wordsmith yourself."

"If you insist. It will be my pleasure."

 

Thomas watched as the man James loved now, smashed another man's skull. Saw for the first time truly how dangerous this man could be and how vulnerable. And what did it say about his jaded heart, Thomas wondered, that in that moment he hurt more with the man who in this task he hadn't been sure he would be able to accomplish to begin with had everything he'd surely already secretly feared to be true flung into his face, than with the man who was ending there right in this moment on the floor.

 

Maybe the insecurity had always been there. Maybe it was amplified by everything that's left unsaid between him and Flint these days. But one thing's for sure. He would not become useless. He would remain as inexpendable to Flint as Flint was to him.

Silver felt a little better when they left the inn, despite the ache in his leg.

 

"Are you shocked?" Silver asked on the way back to the ship, taunt mellowed by the adrenaline in his bloodstream. But secretly he hoped. He wanted him to. Wanted Thomas to be disgusted with who he was, with the man Flint had chosen after him.

"I was right," Thomas replied. "I couldn't have done it."

 

Maybe it was up to him to make sure James was going to be happy, Thomas thought as he watched the other man walk to the cabin, steps heavy with pain. Maybe it was on him to make the decisions the other couldn't, to act in his best interest when the other rarely would. Thomas refused to feel guilty for his own feelings when he already felt guilty for so many other things. James shouldn't have to either.

 

"Are you alright?" 

Silver took a deep breath. Of course Flint wouldn't be able to leave him alone right now. Of course he had heard the tale told by all the men who'd accompanied them. Silver would have especially liked to hear the tale told by one particular person on that trip.

"What did he tell you happened?" Silver asked.

"Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't. I'm just curious."

"I haven't talked to him yet. And I doubt he'd have much to contribute to the tale I've alread heard at least five times on my way here. So, are you? Alright?"

"Of course I am."

*

"Take me to her." Thomas demanded gently.

"I can't." Flint whispered, face flooded with anguish. "She..." He couldn't say, couldn't tell that he'd left her behind there. "I can show you where she lived."

It's probably insane, when the city was still swarming with soldiers that were looking for the murderer of Dufresne, but then again, who'd honestly believe them to be insane enough to just come walking into the interior.

 

Together they moved through Miranda's house.

"You kept this?" There were tears in Thomas' eyes as he fully uncovered the portrait, with hesitant fingers. When he looked up again, he saw tears in James' eyes too, face laced with shame and guilt.

Thomas looked at him. Fondly. Reproachfully. "James." A gentle hand brushing over the other's cheek, almost startling him.

They made love on the bed that had been Miranda's for ten years and occassionally James'.

 

"We were happy, were we not? That's what I held onto. Those moments we shared. You, me and Miranda. Those moments no one could take from me. No matter how they tried. It was worth it, was it not? Otherwise how had any of this made sense? We were happy then. Whatever happened after that, no matter how we have changed now, nothing can ever change that. We have suffered so much. But you, James, you have made my life better. More beautiful. And I will always love you. But you've held on for so long. You've forgotten how to move your hands. It's easy. Just open one finger after another." His hand cupped James' face that felt so much more weathered, that encased so much pain. "You think you owe me something–"

"I don't–"

"No, James. You think you owe me the past and the future just the same. But I see your eyes. I see the way you look at him. And it is good and beautiful. And I'm grateful to see you look at someone like this."

"Silver... that means nothing."

"Look at me and tell me your heart doesn't ache when you say that. And it should. It's not like all you did becomes void by this. This war wasn't just for me. It was for a great injustice. Don't talk about what makes out a good man just be one. You did it because it was the right thing to do. Because it was all that was possible for you. Because you refused to stand down. Because you refused to deny responsibility. Because you refused to just watch. Because you're a good man. Because you're the best man I've ever met." He met James' eyes steadfast and warm. "And someone should be willing to fight for that."

 

Maybe whatever forces there are realised the sacredness and peace of their doing, saw the gentle quietness of their time spent there, for they made it back to the ship unobstructed, as if the more than ever present memory of Miranda protected them.


	10. No love lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter. Things will end one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like ere the year 2017 is through this story will be finished after all. God lord, who would have thought that? I sure didn't count on it anylonger.
> 
> But I just finally watched the last two episodes of season 4 and I got back into the Black Sails vibe, so here I am.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been reading this story and leaving comments and or kudos! I never would have thought this story would get any reponse at all, let alone so much positive feedback! <3 <3 <3

Thomas' words might have as well been said into the wind as much as James heeded them. Nothing changed. James couldn't let go. Didn't understand that this didn't have to be a choice. Didn't have to be a choice against Thomas. But maybe it was. He hadn't taken Mr. Silver's position into account. The other man maybe wouldn't be willing to share. And that's a thought Thomas hadn't considered. What if pushing James to accept his feelings actually meant pushing him away? It wasn't such an obscure notion. He knew Charles would certainly not be willing to share. 

"Do you want to go back to him, is that what this is about?" James asked accusingly, once again picking up the topic of their conversation at Miranda's house.

"No," Thomas shook his head. "This is not what this is about. I love you, James. I always will love you. Even though, I'm not going to lie to you. I have strong feelings for him."

*

Thomas strongly believed in the truth. For oneself, for the people around you. But these days, all the truth seemed to do was hurt the people close to him. And still he believed that it would be wrong not to speak it.

*

Thomas took the binoculars from Charles' hands, training them on the spot at the beach Charles had been watching for the past five minutes. He beheld for the first time the woman that Charles had once loved so fiercely. 

He sat the glasses aside again, regarding Charles pensively. "Could you kill her, Charles? Could you watch her die?"

"I don't know."

*

"Life is simply a question of when to act and when to not act, Charles. And in this case I would strongly advice to not act."

Charles roared up angrily at Thomas. "I will not stand here and do nothing, while they roam around and take what's ours."

"And that is in your power. All I can do is offer you my councel, for you to do with it as you see fit."

"You think you're fucking smart, do you?!"

"I only think that there are things that you can do better than I and that there are things which I can do better than you and that we'd do best to apply ourselves where it benefits all of us the most."

"So, you're saying I'm stupid?"

"Clearly not, or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"You know shit, Thomas. You're not a pirate and you know shit about what it means to fight for something."

*

"What's he doing on that beach?" Thomas asked.

"Preventing any men from joining us today."

Flint got ready to join the shore party.

"You are going to talk to him?" Thomas asked.

"I am."

"Is your mind already made up?"

"Thomas, we had that conversation."

 

Then the boat was gone and Thomas was left behind.

"You're fighting a losing battle here, Thomas." Charles said, stepping beside him.

"We're all fighting a losing battle here." Thomas laughed bitterly.

"Why are you still here then, Thomas, if all this is doomed anyway?"

"Because I don't want either of you to die! Charles, I know, I know, you think fighting is the only way, but can't you see this for the chance it is?! A new life. A free life. Woodes Rogers isn't a bad man. He is exactly the kind of man I would have envisioned for this position. These pardons, they aren't defeat, they are peace."

"I won't beg for something that by all rights is already mine."

"Nothing is yours if others can take it from you. The only thing that no one can take from you is your choice. Everything else you have to fight for. But we can't always choose the territory. We won't win this by bashing a few skulls in. We win this with politics or not at all. When you got out of slavery did you not promise yourself to never be a slave again? You freed me. And I will make sure two things. That you will die a free man. And that it will be of old age. You won't be able to live this life forever. We change now or we perish. The life of a farmer might not appeal to you, militia not either, but there will be a place for you. I can promise you that."

"Life isn't that easy, Thomas. And some of us will have to perish for that new world order. The old will have to die for the new to live. And, honestly, Thomas, I don't think I can change."

Thomas looked harshly at him. "We are all capable of things we didn't think we could do, when the situation demands it."

 

Flint returned from the shore.

"He offered me the pardons again." he said matter-of-factly.

"And you declined."

"And I declined."

*

Charles tried to hold onto his anger for Thomas. Maybe it would make something better, more bearable. It always had with Eleanor. But he couldn't. Even if they were not lovers they would always be something. So much stronger than friends. Both with the unique ability to soothe whatever worried the other.

*

They returned to the house in the interior again. For the second time Thomas saw it. Miranda's abandoned, slowly decaying home, that never was quite home to begin with.

 

"I understand women's need for domesticity." Charles said.

"Not yours?" Thomas interrupted the conversation between Flint and Charles that had been going on between all the leftbehind keepsakes of Miranda's who littered the house like old memories that were almost slipping through your fingers already. Thomas never felt her death so acutely than in this house where he'd never actually seen her live that was still so very undoubtly hers and screamed it with every dying breath. "Have you never felt the wish to settle down? For peace, safety. I know I have every day for the past ten years."

"Why would I tie myself to anything they could control me with, that they could break me with? All I need is my body to carry around with me. Everything else I can obtain when need arises. Isn't that what your philosophy is about too? To let go of the things not in your power. The things that worrying about makes you their slave?"

"True," Thomas conceded. "But isn't a bit of comfort something we all wish for?"

Charles' mind went back to the night before, when they'd all arrived at the house. Sitting in that chair in front of the mirror as Thomas stood behind him and started to untangle his hair with a horn comb which had undoubtly belonged to his late wife. Slowly combing through the strands until they hung uncharacteristically straight and smooth over his shoulders. All in contented silence, only a few insects buzzing around the oil lamp that was the only illumination during Thomas' task.

He'd missed this. More than he could say. Things had been so very simple between them for so long. No, not so long at all. But still he could barely imagine what it had been like without Thomas. What they'd been doing all day without someone dishing out philosophical advice on the daily. Before his crew could quote Marcus Aurelius to his face. Before he knew who Marcus Aurelius even was.  
And despite him and Thomas holding on to their friendship with desperate hands, things had changed. Because it wasn't that easy. And because they weren't just friends. But he needed this, he needed Thomas to be there for him, needed someone he could lean on. And Thomas stood by him in so much at least, carrying his affection and friendship plain to see, even with Flint around, in Flint's full view. Because when it came to it, Thomas was a lot more unapologetic than even Charles. Thomas did what he thought was right. Adhered only to his own set of morals. No matter what it cost him.

*

"You never told me," Flint said, as if struck by sudden realisation.

"Told you what?" Silver asked, eyes straying over Mrs. Barlow's dusty belongings, a cup of wine in his hands. The two of them the only one's still awake.

"After all that time. All the stories you told. I thought, once I'd become someone worth knowing you would tell me. But now, after how close we've become to each other, I realised, I still know nothing about you. Everything we've been through. Everything we've shared. And you still felt you could not share that with me, that I was not worthy of knowing, when you know all there is to know about me. All these nights and you gave me nothing and I didn't realise because I'd gotten so used to it. Because I felt like we both know each other."

"We do. You do." Silver replied roughly. "Nothing else about me to know."

Flint shook his head. "No, I don't. There is more than that."

"You picked a fine time to have this conversation." Silver chuckled darkly.

Flint looked at him disbelieving. "Even if we are not lovers anylonger, we are still friends. Our friendship was hard-earned. And it had nothing to do with what followed next. You gave me your trust and loyality of your own free choosing. And I believe I still have it."

"You do."

"You know that you're as irreplacable to our cause as you've ever been. As irreplacable to me."

"Madi is irreplacable to the cause. You are. I am not." Silver replied bitterly.

"You said it in the doldrums and it is still true. It is you the men listen to. You could tell them the sky is red and they'd believe it. I listen to you."

"That's nothing Thomas couldn't do. As he's vividly shown with securing us Teach's allegiance."

"Could you just shup up about Thomas?! You're the one who insinuated himself into the life and trust of Captain Flint. You're the one who managed to claim my unwavering allegiance against my own will, without me thinking myself even capable of giving it to anyone anylonger!" Flint was angry now. "Thomas barely knows me anylonger!" And he stopped, clearly as dumbstruck by that last part as Silver.

*

Then things turned worse so very quickly, no one saw it coming. And all for reasons that would have been easily avoidable.

"They have Jack."

*

"You asked to see me."

"I did, Govenor."

"Lord Thomas Hamilton. I take it, the rumors of your death were greatly exagerated?"

"I want those pardons." Thomas said without preamble.

Rogers looked mildly shocked for a moment. Hadn't Flint himself told him only three days before that there would be no acceptance of pardons, no peace. "How about your friends?" Rogers asked with a smile.

"I will convince them to accept."

"You can do that?" Rogers raised an eyebrow.

"I can do that." Thomas agreed. "All I need is a little time."

"Time is exactly what I don't have."

"You will receive the cache. But you can't have Jack Rackham."

"Alright."

*

"He lied to you, Thomas!" Charles yelled angrily. "He fucking lied to you. And now the cache is gone. And we still have to get Jack back."

Thomas had never seen such anger and even disgust in Charles' eyes, not directed at him. Everyone eyed him with either suspicion, disappointment or outright anger. James too. The only ones who stood unfaillingly by him, despite not understanding his decision either, was his crew, Charles' crew.

Charles didn't even look at him, as he set out to retrieve both the cache and Jack.

*

They boarded the Walrus, one after another, carrying the cache aboard as well.

"Where is he?" Thomas asked, once he'd taken into account the people who had boarded the ship who were equal in number as had left and yet not the same.

"Charles got caught." Anne said. Her curtness doing nothing to hide the despair behind her words.

"What do you mean got caught?!" Thomas shouted.

 

Thomas looked at him long and hard, in a way Flint didn't remember him ever having looked at him. "You made the wrong call, today." Thomas said. "You should have never left without him. Fuck the gold and fuck Nassau. If Charles dies that will be a loss that no one, no one will be able to replace."

*

"I'm going to get him out," Thomas said. 

"Thomas, no." Flint said. "We left Billy behind with a few of my men, you don't have to–"

Thomas didn't pay him any mind. He looked at Charles' crew. "Who's with me?"

One after another they raised their hands and the stomping of feet on the floor got louder.

"I'm coming with you," an unexpected voice said.

"Silver, for fuck's sake!" Flint looked between the two men with something like exasperated panic.

 

Jack looked glumly at the cache still sitting there in front of them. "If the rescue is unsucessful, Charles Vane's death is in that box."

Thomas stood up, packing some sheets of paper and maps into a saddle-bag. "It won't be unsuccessful. I'll see to it."

 

On his way out, Thomas stopped in front of Blackbeard.

"Don't you worry." he stated very calmly, businesslike. "I'm going to bring him back."

"I count on it Mr. Hamilton." Teach replied. "But if you don't, I'll be taking the Govenor's and Eleanor Guthrie's heads in his memory."

"Revenge is useless." Thomas replied coldly. "We either succeed in saving him or we have failed."

*

"Mr. Bones." Thomas greeted him with a polite incline of his head. "We are here to reinforce your numbers on the matter of the rescue of Captain Vane."

Billy threw a quick look at Silver then back at Thomas and most of Charles Vane's crew, then he seemed to decide to take things as they were.

"They want to hang him." he informed the assembled men.

"When?" Thomas asked.

 

It was simple. They would not have enough time to put anything even ressembling a plan with even modest chances of success into place.

With an angry snarl Thomas spun around on Billy, his voice loud and uncontained. "I don't care if I have to burn down that fort with everyone inside it, I will get him back!"

*

Sitting in that cell and waiting for his death Charles would have liked to say that he had no regrets, but in that moment of all, he wished he could have had something like that with Thomas, no matter how much he'd mocked it. A house somewhere, sitting on the veranda, drinking from one of those dainty little cups that were far too fleeting and fragile. Just like his time with Thomas had been. Maybe peace would have been nice. He almost still felt the comb move through his hair, sitting in front of the dresser that belonged to the woman Charles had never met that both Flint and Thomas had once called their wife. Time was fragile. Happiness was. And Charles hadn't imagined that once his time came he'd want to hold on so fucking much. There's so much unsaid. So much undone. So many possibilities. Charles for the first time in his life didn't want a meaningful death. He wanted to live.

*

"We will save him," Silver said. "Don't worry, we won't leave here without him."

"I'm not sure why you came, but thank you."

"Certainly because we need him. But maybe also because I think he deserves to be saved. And no matter what Billy said, there's always a way."

"I agree."

*

'There is no goodness in you', Eleanor's words reverberated in his head even while she continued speaking. And at the same time another voice was heard, always present there these days. 'You are good and kind in a way nearly nobody is these days. You don't ask or demand. You help without bias. Because you care only for what you think yourself, and in your heart you are good. I can only think of another man that is true for. And if I told you you'd punch me.'

Charles looked at Eleanor. "See, and that's where you're wrong. Because I am a good man. It is you who's wrong. But I wish you all the best in your life, because all that's dark and wrong inside you, that's for you to deal with. And I'll have no more part in it."

She seemed struck for a moment by that, like she had expected him to just sit there and take her abuse. She caught herself quickly though, face hard again, continued to spit her venom and tell him exactly what kind of despicable animal he was.

He interrupted her, not even able to muster anylonger the strength to be angry at her. Thomas had been right, he wouldn't have been able to kill her. "I really loved you, Eleanor," he said. "But I guess, at the bottom line you and your father are just too much alike. You are only capable of loving yourself. And no matter what it has gotten me, I am glad that I'm not like you."

She left him alone then, turned on her heel and walked out the cell like a sleepwalker, face white with either shock or anger. And Charles thanked God that he didn't love her anylonger like he used to, because he would have forgiven her in that moment.

*

The soldiers saw no need to apprehend the English gentleman who approached them.

"I would like to speak to the govenor."

"The governor is currently unavailable. You can speak to his proxy."

 

"Who are you?" Eleanor asked.

"I come on behalf of Captain Vane." Thomas replied. "I believe we haven't been introduced yet. I am Lord Thomas Hamilton. Me and the governor were in negotiations on the peace over Nassau."

"Those negotiations ended when you stole the gold and Jack Rackham." Eleanor replied.

"No," Thomas said calmly. "Those negotiations will end if you kill Charles Vane. And believe me, that is not in your interest. That is not in the interest of Nassau. And it is certainly not in the interest of Mr Rogers. What will the governor say when he regains his health and realises that you destroyed his only chance of success on this island?"

"How do you know that he's sick?!"

"Please, everyone knows there's an epidemic on the island. What else could possibly keep him from his duties here?"

"Aren't you afraid you're going to get sick?" she asked. "You are British as well."

"I had it already." Thomas said with a smile. "Now, let's get back on the topic. You can absolutely not execute Charles Vane. I know he killed your father and I am very sorry for your loss, but James– Captain Flint told me that your and his interests once were aligned, that you both wanted a future for Nassau. Woodes Rogers can be that future, I won't oppose him, I'll even support him, but not over the body of Charles. Don't destroy what you have achieved, what you can still achieve, over revenge. I know what happened between the two of you and I am not seeking to place the blame on you. But you are in a position were you are not allowed to decide what's best for you but what's best for the people who are under your protection. There can be peace or there can be war. And at this moment you are the one to decide which it will be. In this moment war and peace are both in your hands."

"Why do you care so much what happens to him?"

Thomas smiled. "You once loved him, now I do."

Eleanor chortled incredulously. "You love him?" Then she looked at him with something like anger. "Well, good luck to you. Your lover will be hanged tomorrow morning. And nothing that you could say or do will stop me from doing it. Not because I want revenge, even though fuck knows I do, but because it's the right thing. It's the only way Nassau will have a future. Because there will be no law, no right, no peace with Charles Vane alive." She she breathed out harshly through her nostrils, daring him to refute her.

"Keep telling yourself that." Thomas replied sadly. "Right now the only one with whom there will be no peace in Nassau is you. You made your own fate. We will see if you can live with it." He bowed to her quietly and turned to leave.

Eleanor called after him, defiantly, grudgingly, "You think he loves you?! For fuck's sake! Charles Vane loves no one but himself."

Thomas turned around once more, a smile on his face, pitying. "Quite on the contrary. I seldomly met anyone capable of truer and deeper affection. But you had your chance, Madam. And you sure as fuck won't get another one."

"You think you can break him out. What stops me from locking you up right with him?"

"Nothing I guess."

She let him go.

*

"Is being free everything you imagined it to be?" Silver asked, as they lay in waiting, the night before the execution.

"The world has changed. But not too much, as men mostly stay the same."

"I don't believe we ever talked."

"No, we didn't."

"All I know about you I've taken from other people's accounts or watching you." Silver continued. "And I realise, I've made the most crucial mistake of all in believing I know you, when really I don't. There are certain things you can only learn from talking to someone."

"What would you like to know, Mr Silver?"

"Looking back, do you regret your decisions?"

"Regret is an exercise in futility. But, yes, I do. Do you regret yours?"

"I think I do. But I can't be sure anylonger."

"I don't want us to be enemies, Mr Silver. I might have to count on your help once more."

"Don't worry, Mr Hamilton, I don't think we're in the position to have the luxury of making an enemy of the other."

*

He saw Thomas there in the crowd, a little further than Billy. Seeing him gave him some solace, but also once more a last rearing-up of the hardwearing wish to live. But he'd made his decision. In the days spent in that cell. So he wanted to live. There were more important things than his happiness. There were so many more people who wanted to live. Who deserved to have a future. He thought back to the people living on the Maroon Island. So, yeah, he'd made the decision to fight in a way that would truly count. To fight for something that was more important than him. A future for more than just himself. 

He stopped watching Thomas and gave his speech. When he was done he couldn't find Thomas in the crowd anymore. He got to watch Eleanor in his last moments. Who would have thought that?

 

"He wants us to hold back." Billy said. 

"I don't give a flying fuck what he wants," Thomas replied.

 

They were too few, too many soldiers around them. They hadn't had enough time to plan. And in the midst of fighting and explosions, Eleanor Guthrie had the nerve to give the sign to proceed with the execution. Thomas saw the soldier pull the lever, watched as the rope pulled tight and Charles' feet lifted of the floor. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

Wood splintered and Thomas watched Charles' body fall to the floor.

Thomas fought his way through the masses of running people and soldiers. Muskets going off all around him. Sabors and knives crossing. Blood was running into his eyes from a head wound. He wasn't sure how he'd made it to the gallows. But there he was. Charles on the floor, his hands still bound, fighting off a soldier who was trying to finish the job, with feet and teeth. Thomas ran the man right through from behind. Then he cut the ropes securing Charles' wrists and carefully removed the noose from Charles' neck, checking for damage. The next instant Charles had already grabbed him and rolled with im behind the gallows, out of the shooting range of the English soldiers. They lay there, panting, for a moment, Charles cradling Thomas' head to his chest protectively, when it should have been Thomas protecting Charles.

Thomas took a deep breath. He grabbed Charles by the hair and kissed him hard.

"Did you honestly think I would let you die?! Did you in all honesty think I would stand by and watch them kill you?! What is wrong with you?" Thomas looked at Charles in angry exasperation. "Do you think Nassau could mean anywhere near as much as you? You. Miranda. James. Do you think Nassau was worth the sacrifice of just one of you?!"

*

They make it out the city somehow. Alive.

"Where's Mr. Silver?" Thomas asked into the round.

"I'm here." Silver gave a short ironic wave, looking himself quite touseled, his hair covered in dust, his face streaked with black smudges of gunpowder and dirt.

"You're here too, John?" Charles remarked pleasedly.

*

They hole up in the interior, too dangerous to try and get to the coast immediately. They have to lay low for a while. For now they were sitting in an underground cave, concealed from anyone who'd ride past here.

"Are you hurt?" Thomas asked Charles, one hand brushing through his hair, uncaring of the prying eyes of the others in these close quarters.

"I'm fine, Tom."

"You didn't in all honesty believe that I wouldn't come, did you?" Thomas repeated his question from before. "That you could get away with that?"

"Yeah, now in retrospective, I'm really not sure what I was thinking." Charles smiled.

*

Thomas looked at Charles, in the darkness, only an idle torch burning in the front of the cave where the guard post was sitting. He ran his hands over the other's face again and again, eyes over and over gliding to the dark bruises around Charles' throat.

"You would never be willing to share me with James, would you?" Thomas asked quietly, because he just had to. "Despite me loving you both."

Charles looked at him uncomprehending for a moment, pulled from the drowsy almost trance, between sleep and the touch of Thomas' hands. Then his expression darkened, became hard. "Yes!" he said angrily, voice not at all contained like Thomas' had been. "I want you to choose, goddammit! Is it so unbelievable that I want come first for just one person in this world?!" Then more choked and softer now, "That I want to come first for you."

"No. No it's not."

*

When they returned, the first to climb aboard the ship was Charles Vane. And for a moment Flint was not sure who he was more worried to have lost, Silver or Thomas. But then both of them followed soon after Charles. Silver actually taking Charles Vane's hand to let him help him over the railing.

Flint for once gave in and pulled Silver to his chest for a moment, before he went to hug Thomas.

*

"I met Eleanor," Thomas said.

"You did?" Charles looked up from his ale.

"Yes, I asked her to let you go."

"How did you get her to come to a meeting?"

"Oh, I didn't, I just went into the fort."

"Are you insane?" Charles laughed, nearly spilling his ale. "You walked in there? That's like Port Royal all over."

"Well, I gave my real name this time. It was a Hail Mary, really."

"And I thought the Hail Mary was the stunt you pulled on the market place."

"Yes, well, I had a few of those."

"Was John Silver one of those?"

"Strange pairs, Captain Vane, strange pairs." Thomas winked at him.

Charles laughed. "You haven't called me that since... we first met."

"Well, I called you that for a while after that too."

"I still remember you sitting there in that cage. And I thought, well that is a bad motherfucker."

Thomas laughed. "And you know well what I thought. I love how you always fight shirtless. A sight for sore eyes after ten years. I didn't think my day could get any better after your men slaughtering the soldiers and then you walked in."

"I think if you'd hit on me right there, I would have really been scared. Not many men who manage to do that."

"I better not tell that to anyone. Charles Vane getting freaked out by being hit on in the midst of bloody carnage."

"Hey, for all I knew you could have been a crazy serial killer."

"Uh-huh, that sure can freak a pirate out, I can get behind that."

They were still hysterically laughing, when some members of the crew wandered in.

"We should probably tell them that we smoked something."

"Yeah, we better should."

"So, what did you think of Eleanor?"

"I think we all agree that she is aesthetically pleasing, so I assume you mean personality wise. Given that when I met her she was about to order your execution, let's say I wanted to cut a bitch. But I'm sure she's without a doubt very resourceful. But you realise the striking resemblance she has to me?"

Charles looked like his eyes were about to bulge out. "What?!"

Thomas started laughing. "I'm sorry, I'm just riling you a little. Jack told me that he'd compared her and me and it had pissed you off."

From the distance they were still watched by the random crew members who'd strolled in.

"Are they always like this?" one of Flint's crew asked.

"Pretty much." the man replied. "We're used to it by now."

"Why can't ours be like this?" the man who'd first asked the question wondered. "Ours are only every angry or sad."

*

The fighting continued. A stalemate in the harbor of Nassau. But it wasn't looking good. For now they had the Governor locked in. But if he got just one ship out to call for reinforcement, their already straggling fleet wouldn't be able to hold out.

*

The cannon ball hit the ship. Wood burst, spewing up fire and debris everywhere.

"Fuck, are you okay?" Charles asked, body shielding Thomas.

"I'm fine." Thomas replied.

Flint slowly righted himself again, pushing himself off Silver. He checked the other for injuries, but found him shaken but unharmed. The transluctant blue eyes looking back at him in equal shock as he must have been displaying right now.

And then it hit Flint with the full force of implication. He'd been standing beside Thomas. He'd been standing beside Thomas, when the explosion'd hit. And still he'd sprinted across the deck to get to Silver.

*

Thomas sought out Silver that night.

He sat down across from him, with a cup of wine. "I, personally, want to see both Eleanor Guthrie and the Governor dead." Thomas started off. "For betraying me, for bringing us into a situation where she had the chance to try and kill Charles. But at the same point I realised that nothing has changed. That we are still in the same situation we were before, when I made the decision. I don't want James or Charles to die in this war. I don't want to die either. Do you?"

*

Silver was clearly drunk when he stumbled into Flint's cabin.

"I had the regular childhood of stealing and turning tricks as any other street kid." he started angrily, speech slurring a little. "Would it have made a difference if I'd told you? Would it have? You wanted to know! Would it have made a difference?!"

"John." Flint'd gotten up, face scrunched up in worry or concern, or pain, Silver was too drunk to be able to really tell. "What's wrong?"

"I've lied to you so many times. And there are so many lies still out there. And this time you're not going to forgive me."

*

"Lord Hamilton." Woodes Rogers greeted him apprehensively.

"Governor. A lot of things didn't go the way we intended them to go."

Rogers nodded sadly. "They did not."

"I still want those pardons."

Rogers looked at him in surprise.

"You betrayed me once, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you give me a conscession on your part. The freed slaves stay free. I want that on paper. And all those to come who might escape and might want to join us, either in Nassau or the Maroon Island, we won't officially offer them help, but those who come to us, we won't turn them away and you won't make us. Try to change these parameters later on and you will find out why no governor before managed to hold Nassau. Those are my demands. They're not negotiable. Make your decision. We do this today or we don't do it at all. I will receive the pardons, right here, right now. And by nightfall you will have the cache."

"I... That sounds agreeable. But there is no way they would–"

"They will. Captain Flint, Captain Vane will trust my judgement."

"There is one man who will never accept the reign of law and order over Nassau."

"Blackbeard."

"That is right."

"Alright then. I agree. He would rather die then accept the future we have in mind for Nassau."

Rogers looked at him quizzically. "He is very close to your friend Captain Vane, is he not? You would deliver him to me, still?"

"If I have to play the villain for this story to have a happy ending, I will gladly do so."

*

"The cache is gone!!"

"I know." Thomas replied calmly.

"What did you do?!" Flint asked aghast.

"I ended this war and made a decision none of you were able to make for yourselves. I said it before, I say it again, James, the bad things that happened in between don't make this goal any less worth achieving than it was ten years ago in my house in London. The man out there on the beach could be me. And you will go out there and you will talk to him. All it takes is one good man in a powerful position. And we will not be the ones who stop this from happening. I will not let you. I will not let all of you run into an avoidable death over notions like pride or revenge."

"Alright, this is what we'll do." Flint started. "We will keep this quiet. No one has to know. This war won't end with this. We'll make do. We can still apprehend the treasure when they try to return it to the Spanish."

"No, Flint!" Silver said harshly, definitely. "I followed you all this time. Supported you, backed up your decisions, even if I didn't understand them, even if I didn't agree. But this time you're wrong. It's over. And it's good that it's over. Thomas is right."

"John! This war, our war, it is important! We're about to change the world here!"

"This war isn't half as important to me as you think. And we're about to die here. I won't let that happen. Not to you, not to Madi, not to myself."

*

"You had no right to make that decision for all of us." Charles said.

"But make it I did." Thomas replied." Trust me, Charles. Accept this."

"Charles won't accept this and neither will I," Teach said.

"It is over. You won't change anything about that. If you want to die for a doomed way of life that is your business, but you won't drag Charles into it."

"Charles has always made his own decisions."

They both looked at the man in question.

"Charles, please." Thomas urged. "Believe in me. If you can't believe in yourself. If you can't believe in this future. Believe in me. I beg you."

Charles remembered what he'd thought of in that cell, what had been on his mind as he had stood on the gallows. A cup of tea. A comb moving through his hair. He had asked for this. As he thought he was dying he had asked for this. Who was he to throw it away now? He was scared. But he was no coward. "I believe in you, Thomas."

Relief radiated across Thomas' face and Charles didn't regret his decision. "Thank you."

"I still have the fleet." Teach pointed out.

"I can assure you, that me and Mr. Silver combined can convince every single member of said fleet to turn from you. This war is over, Teach. Live."

"You realise we also have a say in this," Jack piped up. "We did not bow down to British rule before and we will not now. Jack Rackham won't go into history as–" He was knocked over the head by Anne.

"'ve heard enough of that bullshit. Remember that time you insisted on going back into Nassau and got caught? Been too fucking patient with you all along. Fuck you, Jack and fuck your name. I'm maybe stuck with you, but I'm done humoring yer fucking dumb ideas." She looked at Thomas. "We'll take the fuckin' pardons."

"But–" Jack started again.

"You shut yer fuckin' mouth."

*

"Where is Blackbeard?" Rogers asked.

"There was a change of plans."

"I had your word."

"As I had yours the other time. Let's just consider us both men who like to stand by their word whenever possible. You have the cache, that shall suffice."

"I need someone to hand over to the Spanish!"

"No Blackbeard, no Mr. Rackham, no other pirate to pacify the Spanish. They shall be content with what they receive and if they are not they may come. Your men will defend the bay of Nassau and they will have the aid of the pirate fleet."

*

"What of us now, Thomas?" the crew asked, looking at him still like he had all the answers. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"All things are changing. We ourselves just the same. And the whole universe too. We should not be afraid of change. It comes natural, it comes whether we ask for it or not. You are not just pirates. You are men with abilities. Each of you has his own set of talents and knowledge, that can be applied anywhere, not just on a pirate ship. I know many of you will miss the account. But believe me, every single one of your who wishes it, will have other chance to go back to the see, other opportunities to fight if he wishes so. But this time without the danger of being hanged if you are captured. Nassau is still here. And Nassau has commerce, a militia, many other posts, that need men who can fight, or sail, or cook. This is still our all home. Nothing has changed about that."

There's murmuring among the crew, some still looking unconvinced. Charles was curious to see how Thomas would turn this around. He himself stood back and just listened. He wasn't the one people had asked for guidance.

"Look at me," Thomas said. "I was a Lord, then I became a pirate, now I have to start over again. I don't have all the answers either. I don't know what I am going to do. But I am confident in my capabilities, confident that every skill I aquired that has gotten this far, that's kept me alive all this way, will continue to do so."

*

Thomas looked at Flint. "Do you hate me now?"

"No. No I don't." Flint shook his head with a small smile. "I think you might have been right, but it doesn't feel like it yet."

"Give it some time." Thomas smiled too. "It's as I said, open that fist. It's time to let go. You will get used to it."

*

"Silver," Flint started.

"No." Silver interrupted him. "I don't want to hear it. I've had enough of your bullshit! The war is over. It worked. Deal with it."

*

"We gotta figure this out." Flint said as he barged into Silver's cabin.

"Not this again," Silver groaned. "You heard me. What's there to figure out?" 

"I made a mistake" Flint continued.

"No shit." Silver snorted, settling back down on his bed.

"It is hard for me to admit that a path pursued for so long might not be right anylonger. It's hard for me to let go of something I've been holding on for so long. That was all I had for so long."

"It's a fucking war, James. Don't talk about it like a lost lover."

"But I am."

"You're what?" Silver sat back up again abruptly.

"I'm talking about Thomas. About you."

"What– what point are you trying to make here?" Silver shook his head confused.

"Leaving you." Flint clarified. "It doesn't work like that."

"Are you drunk?" Silver inquired.

Flint only had a quick smile for Silver's words. Then he continued, "I can't fool myself about this, as it turns out."

"Well, you could have certainly fooled me."

"Look, I'm not making myself clear here. There's Thomas and me, but then there's also you. Which I obviously can't ignore."

"Obviously." Silver parroted, unable to help himself.

"Could you shut the fuck up for a moment, John. I'm trying to apologize here."

"I think you already did that and I recall I said I didn't give a fuck."

"Well, we both know that's not true. I love you and that didn't stop when Thomas returned."

Silver snorted. "Give it a while."

"I want you back with me."

"How could there possibly be a place for me? When he's back."

"How could there not be a place for you? How could there ever not be a place for you in my heart?!"

"Are you listening to yourself?! We're talking about the guy for whom you started this whole fucking war! For whom you just accepted to end this war. And how long do we know each other? A year?"

"Did it ever occur to you that I accepted this not just for Thomas' sake but for yours? If it hadn't been for your words, I probably would have found a way to continue this. The Maroon people would have been with me. It might have escaped your notice, but it is you I listen to these days. It doesn't suit you to belittle yourself. You of all people should know the effect you have on people in a very short amount of time."

"Oh, yeah? If I'm so awesome and irresistable, name me one of those reasons, why would you want to stay with me?"

"I could name you ten. But what's the matter with you? Since when do you care about whether you in fact are the better choice for anything?"

"I don't know," Silver answered bitterly, "Maybe I'm insecure, because some asshole I'm in love with left me."

"It was a shit situation and I did what I thought was right. As you said, I started a war over him. But now I really don't want to consider the rest of my life without you. So are you going to consider giving me another chance?!" Flint conceded that it probably would have come across a bit better if he had sounded a little less pissed-off.

Silver looked at him darkly, lips pinched.

"What about Thomas?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah, you never know anything, do you?"

"Listen, you little shit, we will figure this out, okay? Let it suffice to say for now that when it comes down to it, it is you."

"Can you hand me my peg-leg so I can hit you over the head with it?"

Flint gave a half-smile. "Is that a 'yes'?"

"Yes."

*

"I'm not jealous," Thomas stated. "I can share, I can let go. I get space. And James and me, it's just always going to be there. There is nothing either of us could do about it. As I said, I can share, you don't. And you shouldn't have to."

Charles looked at him with this sort of angry, defeated disgust. Like he'd never expected anything else. Like he didn't deserve anything else. "You don't have to explain anything to me."

"Did you know that I wanted to fuck you the moment I first saw you in the hold?"

"I guess a lot of people feel that way. What's that to do with anything?" Crossed arms, all barriers up.

"Remember when we talked about Eleanor?" A gentle question.

A terse nod.

"I would never do that to you. And yet I'll never know if you feel for me what you felt for her. I will never know if you don't still feel that way for her. Just like you'll never know if I feel for you what I feel for James, what I felt for him. All you can do is believe me when I tell you that I want to be with you. Here. Right now. That I want you to lie beside me when I wake up at the beach with a hangover. That your happiness is my chief priority now. And that's really nothing I have any control over."

*

"What the fuck is going on with us Thomas?" Flint asked, desperation and sadness tinging his voice.

"Time, James. It's just time. Let it move. It will either way."

"I don't... this is it? After everything..." A helpless sound escaped Flint's throat.

"Uh-uh." Thomas shook his head. "This will never be it. We will always be. Just not like that. Life is a long time and we are very fortunate if we happen to have more than one person in our lives that we love in that time."

"I love him," Flint said. "I truly do." Guiltily and yet like a sudden inspiration from God.

"Of course." Thomas nodded.

"And you love that man?"

"Jesus, James. Say his name." Thomas chuckled.

"Vane." Flint spat out with not as much venom as usually.

"I do. Different than you. Like I am younger and like I am older both. He found me, James. And I don't mean that he saved me. Which he did. He showed me what I can still be after everything they did to me. He showed me that I still have it in me to live. 'How fortunate that I am not broken by this', that's what I've been telling myself for years. He showed me that I am truly not. And the funny thing is, I want to protect him. And I can."

*

They travelled back to the Maroon Island. Silver had at least managed to convince Madi of the futility of trying to fight this war on her own, but she wasn't speaking to either of them anylonger.

When Flint and Charles went to find the queen, Madi held back Thomas, signaling that she wanted to speak to him.

"I was right about you," she said with contempt. "I shouldn't have trusted you."

 

Flint stayed behind, letting Charles break it to the queen, which seemed only appropriate.

She had heard already, of course. Charles could see it on her face.

"I'm sorry." he said. "I know this isn't the end you wanted, the end we had promised."

"You gave up so very quick." she said coldly.

Charles shook his head. "No, no, we did not. We gave up when we still had the chance to. I didn't see it myself. We wouldn't have won. We couldn't have won. And the deal Thomas made. It's good. It's a lot better than what either of us had before. And it's as Julius said, you can't change the world that fast, not like that."

"You didn't keep your word Captain Vane," the Queen said. "But I believe you might have saved my daughter's life. Even if she can't see it."

*

"I can't believe you chose me." Charles said quietly.

"I did." Thomas replied simply. Then, "Maybe I just wanted to lick those abs again."

"Gentlemen," Jack suddenly spoke up, sitting across from them in the rowboat. "Maybe wait till we've reached Nassau before things get out of hand?"

"Shut up, Jack." Anne interrupted him. "I wanna hear this."

*

"Why can't you believe me?" Flint asked.

"Because I am not a nice person, by any standards, even by yours. And he is. More than that. He's like all of my best qualities and none of my worst. Oh, and then he's of course your long-lost love."

Flint snorted, which seemed to rile up Silver only more. "Yes, well, life is weird like that. Indeed, how could I possibly fall for you?" Flint smiled grimly. "You're a horrible and completely unremarkable person. Here's a little food for thought for you. When I met Thomas, I immediately liked and respected him. When I met you, I wanted to kill you."

"Is that supposed to cheer me up?"

"I think it already did. Words are cheap. But I guess we have time now. I'll wait for a day, a month, a year, forever, for you to believe me."

*

"What now, Thomas?" Charles asked. "What's the plan?"

"A nice country house. I wake you up with my cold feet in the morning and you make me tea. Which you will secretly like, despite refusing to admit to it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Or we can get a ship and a crew and work as merchants, if you miss the sea. I'm sure we would be much sought after, given our experience. Imagine someone trying to take a ship with us and our crew on it. There are enough pirates still out there. Nassau isn't the whole world."

"Going legit for real, aren't we? Doesn't sound like a bad idea. And the boys will need jobs. But let's try that whole tea thing first."

*

"I guess I'll have to start over again once more." Flint said, staring at the Walrus. "At least I still have her. And the crew will probably stay for your sake at least. If we can find commission, maybe at Boston."

"Uhmm," Silver started. "That's probably a good time to mention... Back when I told you that I'd returned my share of the Urca gold to stay on the crew, remember?"

"Yes." Flint's answer was long-drawn like he already knew something was about to come.

"I set a bit of it aside. You know for a rainy day. It just didn't seem sensible to make myself completely vulnerable to the goodwill of others."

Flint smiled. "Of course you did."

"Hey, it's your money too. You should be so grateful."

Flint smiled even broader, genuine, happy and fond. "Yes, John, thanks for stealing from me."

*

They saw Eleanor in the streets of Nassau, walking there with her husband and their regular crew of soldiers trailing a few feet behind. Thomas saw Eleanor's and Charles' eyes meet and when he looked at her face, he thought deep down she was glad that Charles hadn't died.

*

When Miranda had begged him to all these years, it had happened without him realising. And despite Thomas always having a piece of him and despite his own urge to cling to the past, his heart had had no such reservations.

And somehow despite it all it had worked out. Thomas was at his side again and it was alright. It was alright to love Silver. And for the first time in ten years there was no weight on his shoulders. He ran a hand over his scalp and realised he'd forgotten to shave for a few weeks now. It was okay. It was okay to let go now. It was okay to be happy now. He remembered Thomas' admission that he too had always felt guilty for what he'd done to Miranda and him. Life was sometimes cruel, but not merciless, as it had given them both this second chance. And maybe those ten years hadn't destroyed them. Maybe they could really make the words of Aurelius true. Maybe change didn't stop them from still being who they had been. Whatever powers had made Vane find Thomas on that ship and Silver pick up that map. 

He had been happy for some time now, overshadowed by guilt and self-hate but with everyday a little less. 

They both had to stop blaming themselves, because the last thing he wanted to see was Thomas upset. Least of all on his behalf. He remembered Silver's words in the early days of their aquaintanceship. 'Because of me we are better of now than we were ten seconds ago and you are upset because it didn't go your way'. Yes, happiness had come in a very unexpected way. That it had come at all had been the most unexpected. But here they were, the war he'd fought for so hard, ripped from his hands when he'd been so close. And for the first time in years Flint had hope for the future, thought the future was something actually worth seeing. Together with the two people who meant everything to him in this world. And given everything that had happened in the past weeks. Hell, maybe he did deserve happiness after all.

 

Thomas kissed Flint on the forehead.

"Know no shame."

And maybe now it was okay to be James again.

"Don't cry, James. Please don't cry." Thomas took his face in both his hands.

 

END 

***

I was lightning before the thunder

(Imagine Dragons - Thunder)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some might wonder why the last scene was between Flint and Thomas and not Charles and Thomas. But while this was a story about Charles and Thomas, it was bottomline Thomas' story and that is still very much and will always be about Flint.
> 
> Well, anyway, I enjoyed writing this story so very very much and I wanna say thank you again to Andrea_deer for delivering this amazing prompt! :D
> 
> I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the title of the story is taken from the eponymous song from the show Empire, which I've been listening to a lot while writing this.


End file.
